Time Warner Cable NYC Begins DVR Distribution

MikeTRose writes "Today's NYT Circuits section has an article about the proliferation of digital television choices for cable and satellite customers. They mention that Time Warner Cable will be starting to offer DVR cable boxes to New York City subscribers in September 2003. Apparently the time-shifting features of the new Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000 (flash demo) set-tops are unusually powerful, as I got mine in Brooklyn this past Tuesday. 80 GB drive, which equals an estimated 50 hours of digital cable programming (no quality controls a la TiVo or ReplayTV, everything is as-broadcast). Programming interface is integrated completely into the slightly-updated channel guide, and you hit one big ol' record button to save a show. The tuner can handle two channels at once, so you can watch one/record one, or record two programs while watching a prerecorded show (similar to the DirecTV TiVo units if I recall correctly). Works great so far, and there's no quality problem with recompressing the digital cable as there is with standalone DVRs, nor is there the annoying 2-3 second channel change lag while it caches video. At less than $10 a month -- no cost to the subscriber for the box -- that money we were saving for a TiVo is up for grabs."

Comments

I have one

[astrashe]

I've had one of these boxes for two or three weeks, in Lincoln, Nebraska. It's great.

It costs an extra $5 a month, on top of the standard digital cable rate, and there were no hardware or installation charges. There's very tight integration with the program guide - when you browse through channels, you can see whatever you're watching (live or recorded) in a small window, and it's easy to program things.

The digital cable channels look fantastic - you can really tell the difference, especially when you pause the picture.

I've never used or even seen a tivo, so I don't know how this box compares to those, or specifically to the feature that lets you skip commercials. This box has a nice fast forward feature, with three different speeds, and when you drop out of it, the box tries to line you up with a scene change - in practice, it's pretty good at letting you hit the end of the commercial exactly.

At first I thought they were offering this because a DVR would make an ideal pay per view platform, but the box doesn't add anything to the PPV functionality of the old digital cable box. Time Warner has a system they call "iControl" that lets you pause, rewind, fast forward, etc., a PPV program, and the new box uses the same system, instead of its own disk.

Apparently they've been sending out a few software updates to these boxes. I was a very early adopter here - I had to keep calling the cable company, to see if they were out yet, to get mine. The installer told me that there were a lot of glitches early on in the roll out, but I haven't had many problems.

It is possible to trigger a reboot in the box by overloading it - I'm not exactly sure what causes it, but if you're doing several things at once with it, you can sink it. This has happened to me two or three times.

The really cool thing about these boxes is that they have USB and Firewire ports on them. But there's no software support for them. If you could extract video from these things, they'd be perfect.

Re:I have one

[ultrapenguin]

try this place:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&t hreadid=269141.

Requires an Apple laptop/desktop, firewire cable, OSX 10.2+, some C++ skills, and a large hard disk.

Re:I have one

[afidel]

Does it have an equivilant to Tivo's season pass? This is my favorite Tivo feature, tell it what shows you want to watch and it will record the entire season, including multiple shows where it will pick up conflicting shows at a later time if possible, otherwise it will warn you and let you chose which one to select. It also deals with schedule changes quite well (other than those occouring from realtime events like emergencies, late ending sporting events, or the like)

Re:I have one

[mckwant]

the TW DVR has something that's supposed to be similar, but it does a lousy job at maintaining itself. For some reason, if you ever schedule anything at the same time (which is possible with the second tuner), it cancels your season's pass without telling you.

I pray that people will use TiVos more than they use these crappy boxes, because I could go on about their inferiority, but, well, it's TW.

I mean really, even the grandparent admits it "reboots when you overload it." My TiVos only reboot when I unplug them. Just sickening.

Re:I have one

[astrashe]

I'm not familiar with tivo's season pass, so I'll just describe what this box does.

You schedule recordings from the program guide -- you can page through a grid and pick the shows you want to record. When you select a program, you get a pop-up menu that lets you record the one episode, or the entire series.

If you record the series, it will only record it on that channel, by default, but it will record it all times.

But you can go into another menu (series manager) and change the options -- there you can tell it how many episodes of a given show to keep, whether or not to record it only a specific time, or at all times, etc.

It's pretty good, for the most part, but it's not terribly bright about some things. For example, I like south park, and I want it to record all of the episodes. But it will keep a second copy of the same episode on the disk, even though the program guide has enough information for it to know that it's the same program.

I stopped recording dennis miller live on HBO, for example, because of that problem. When you get HBO here, you get 12 english channels, and they have dennis miller all over the place, with a ton of duplications, especially across the time zones.

The main feature that tivo has that this doesn't, as far as I can tell, is the thing that suggests programs for you. This box only records what I tell it to record, or what I watch.

Re:I have one

[Anonymous Coward]

That last paragraph reeks of fanboy. I have a Tivo, and in addition to the occasional lockup just because it feels like it, the modems in Tivos fry if you breath on them hard. I'd gladly put up with a small amount of additional instability in exchange for the godly ability of recording two shows at once.

Re:I have one

[SuperDuperMan]

I've had two DirecTivos for years since they came out and not a single failure of the modem. I also have experienced only a few odd lockups and not in recent memory.

You don't have to be a fanboy to speak well of a product. TiVo isn't just a DVR it's a damn good DVR.

Re:I have one

[Yottabyte84]

TiVo is smart enough not to duplicate recordings. The other nice feature is wishlists. They let you record by actor, keyword, director, etc.

Re:I have one

[Jordy]

The digital cable channels look fantastic - you can really tell the difference, especially when you pause the picture.

I imagine that Time Warner NYC is just like every other cable company in the US and the first 60 channels give or take are analog.

If so, how do those channels look with this device?

Re:I have one

[dorsey]

It is possible to trigger a reboot in the box by overloading it

This occasionally happens to my fairly new, non-DVR, digital cable box.

Every so often, the box seems to get... "stuck" on certain commands, and if I try to give it a new command before it's sorted out the first one it reboots.

Re:I have one

[SpryGuy]

The differences from TiVo are many.

For one thing, there is no "Season Pass". You can record "All Episodes" of a show, but it really means ALL of them. Try that with The Simpsons, and it'll be recording almost non-stop. It doesn't distinguish the new shows from repeats. And there's no way to set it to record just one time a week (i.e. "every monday at 10pm, this channel") to only get the originals for shows like Six Feet Under.

There is no ability to tell it to record things based on movie stars or subjects or anything like that.

It's basically a suped-up VCR with a very easy way of telling it to record. And if you decide to record something half-way through watching it, it will record the whole thing (from the moment you tuned into it, not the moment you pressed the record button).

It has some "silent" limitations on the number of things that can be queued up for recording, so if you tell it to record lots of things, some of the first things you mentioned might 'disappear' without any warning. Which sucks.

But over-all, I love it. The monthly fee is very reasonable ($4.95), and otherwise there's no extra box, no extra connections, no extra remote, so it's very convenient.

It's no TiVo, but it costs less (nothing to buy!) and is vastly superior to VCR.

Re:I have one

[Yottabyte84]

My TiVo only ever locks up if I'm running TiVo web on it (and even then, it continues recording shows, the interface just stops responding to input). And yes, the modems fry to easily, but that is easily solved with a surge protector.

Re:I have one

[AKnightCowboy]

I pray that people will use TiVos more than they use these crappy boxes, because I could go on about their inferiority, but, well, it's TW. I mean really, even the grandparent admits it "reboots when you overload it." My TiVos only reboot when I unplug them. Just sickening.

Oh get off your high-horse already. What TW is doing is awesome and I hope more cable companies start to offer PVR functionality in the future. The main reason is there is NO loss in quality, no IR blasters to worry about, no third party services to pay, etc. Plain and simple integration into the cable box is what we should've had years ago.

The only thing we need to make sure of is that these new services let you offload the programs you've recorded via a network or firewire to another computer to archive. I've got over 200 hours of shows on my current PVR that I simply do not want to delete so I need to invest in a DVD-R drive soon since my PVR is half full (400 GB max MythTV box).

Re:I have one

[Anonymous Coward]

Requires an Apple laptop/desktop, firewire cable, OSX 10.2+, some C++ skills, and a large hard disk.

And ten pounds of vaseline.

Re:I have one

[clarkc3]

If I recall, Time Warner does have High Definition versions of many of those channels rebroadcast under a different channel #, at least they do for all the local channels by me. Just use those and I imagine it would look just fine

Re:I have one

[akiaki007]

Not exactly. I believe prime time, the networks are all broadcast in HDTV, and by definition, that's not analog. Also, here, HBO is channel 32 and that's digital along with a bunch of other channels (ESPN, etc). I have satellite right now because TWC doesn't recognize my building as existing (it's almost 1 year old) and the quality is awesome, so I expect TWC is the same.

on a side note, because TWC sucks, I also don't have internet at home (i just moved into a sublet) and am in serious withdrawal...

Re:I have one

[Goth Biker Babe]

Does this give you a direct feed from the front end demodulated signal?

The reason why PVRs on digital television make sense is because they're relatively easy to implement. Just record the demodulated feed on to the harddrive. Then when playing back feed the transport stream in to the decoder from the HD rather than the front end.

Re:I have one

[Cpt_Kirks]

And ten pounds of vaseline.

Appropriate, since we are talking about Time Warner. I would have read this last night, at home, but my fucking TW cable (and roadrunner) has been out *ELEVEN DAYS*! I still can't get the bastards on the phone. Just because the whole county got trashed by a storm is no excuse! I am going to miss SG-1 *AGAIN*!

OK, enough venting. Some guys here at work have the TW DVR box and love it. I mean, frothing at the mouth, Tivo, Mac or Linux zealot love.

I have built my own, but like the Tivo, these units have more features and are easier to use.

Re:I have one

[mckwant]

Ok, ok, umount -f /me.

From numerous posts, though, the TW box appears to be decidedly underpowered (see 5-10 second remote reaction, which I also get), and the decompression leaves artifacts over half the screen reasonably often, but more often when it's recording two things at once..

I'm not arguing that SOME timeshifting isn't better than NO time shifting. I'm arguing that TW is doing their development on the fly, and that TiVo is the better engineered system.

The problem is that people are going to get used to the issues presented by the TW DVR, and accept them as normal, when in fact, they're getting an inferior service (IMNSHO).

How's Myth working out, BTW? I was interested, but chickened out. Specifically, how's the UI for spouses, etc?

Re:I have one

[ruiner13]

Yeah, I have TW Cable in Indianapolis (now called Brighthouse), and we've had access to this unit for several months now (I have one). I have had the annoying crash you described, it used to happen at least once a week. I guess some of the firmware updates may have slowed that down. It seemed to happen when I was scrolling through the channels at the same time it started recording something. It would just turn off with an error code on the display, and then reboot itself five minutes later, resulting in a gap in the recording and no access to cable during that time. As for the recording quality, It isn't exactly as good as the broadcast signal, there is clearly artifacting (might be easier to tell through the S-VIdeo cable I use). I'd put the quality a bit above a good VHS tape. Despite with the original poster said, you can record 2 shows and watch a 3rd, although the unit gets very sluggish (I can forgive it for that). If the power goes out too (or you unplug it), you'll have to wait about 5 minutes for the thing to reload all the program info as well. For the extra $8/month, I'd say it is really worth it. One strange thing though, when the unit is connected and turned off, you cannot get your regular cable channels to pass through the unit as I expected. All you see is a black screen. This means that if your unit fails for any reason, you'll have to disconnect it to get your channels to pass through to the TV (obviously no digital ones).

Hope that helps.

Re:I have one

[Cpt_Kirks]

I have one box set up mainly as a Tivo-like unit, with an ATI TV Wonder VE. I'm thinking about sticking another tuner card in one of my other boxes for the rare occasions when I need to record two shows at once.

Re:I have one

[markhb]

I've had one of the TW boxes since the beginning of this year (Southern Maine is one of TW's favorite test markets), and you can do a standard "record channel x on schedule y" (where "y" is a particular date, every <particular day of week>, every weekday, etc.), independent of the program guide Check the manual for the "Scheduled Recording" option; it's in some unexpected place on-screen. I'm not sure if the odd placement is the fault of TW or Scientific Atlanta, but my hunch is the manufacturer.

Oh, BTW, according to SciAtl at the DVP product page, the HDTV-capable DVR cable box will be available to cable operators in October-November. Can they get any more tech in one box?

Re:I have one

[Anonymous Coward]

One note. There is no loss of quality on DirecTivo units. It just records the raw digital feed. I believe that cable units like this will be available soon too, with real Tivo.

Re:I have one

[szquirrel]

I've had one of these boxes for two or three months in Indianapolis, IN. It's a piece of shit.

It does the very basics of what it claims with mixed results. If you tell it to record every episode of a show, be prepared to get every episode. In theory it should be able to detect a repeat of an already recorded show but in practice mine records lots and lots of repeats, quickly filling the drive. If the drive does fill up your shows scheduled to record will be ignored without warning. And sometimes your shows will be de-scheduled for no apparent reason at all.

To make things worse, the hardware quality is absolutely wretched. The first hard drive in mine died after three weeks. The replacement must have a bearing problem because it makes a very audible whirring noise. It's annoying, but not as annoying as blocking out four hours to wait for a cable guy to come fix it. The last guy who came out told me that about half of the units they get are DOA, usually with bad drives. Oh, and the picture quality on analog channels is worse than my previous non-DVR cable box. Artifacts and color banding galore.

So basically this thing sucks dead maggots through a straw but it's still slightly better than no DVR at all. The dual tuners, low price, and easy setup (all in one box, no phoneline, no IR blaster) are what keep me from buying a real DVR like Replay or Tivo. Still, I wish I had the option of paying 3x as much for a better piece of equipment. Cheap-ass Time Warner (oops, I mean Brighthouse!).

Re:I have one

[Gleep]

your channels are digital because you have satellite but that is not true of cable. channel 32 on any cable system in the country is analog until the FCC rules for carriers and their analog distribution change. once they release cable providers from having to provide these analog channels then you will probably get digital hbo on channel 32 over cable but not until then.

Re:I have one

[wurp]

It depends on the manufacturer of your Tivo hardware. I have used Philips and DirecTivo, and they work great. I have a friend who has a Tivo from a different manufacturer, and he's sent his back multiple times, all for modem problems.

Re:I have one

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you CAN tell it to record "every monday at 10pm, this channel". After you've told it to record the entire series, just go into the "Series Manager" menu and adjust the recording options accordingly.

Re:I have one

[jred]

You must be in the Memphis area, too. I didn't get power back until last Sunday night, cable tv came back with it. It took an additional 3 days for RR to come back online, and man, was I jonesin' for the net :D

At least I had hot water, so I didn't stink too bad...

Re:I have one

[Cpt_Kirks]

Yeah, Lakeland. TW tech was just at the house. He had to run a new line to my house. They will have to bury it later. Cable, but no RR. Not enough signal strength. I now have another project for the weekend (check connections, replace splitters, correctly terminate lines, etc.).

We lost power for 50 hours. Since we were closed here at work, I spent the time at Pickwick, drinking beer on the pontoon and feeling sorry for all the poor folks at midtown...

Re:I have one

[sdpinpdx]

The other nice feature is wishlists. They let you record by actor, keyword, director, etc. ... before the appear on the schedule. Tell it you want "Starship Troopers", and next time it comes by TiVo grabs it.

Re:I have one

[SpryGuy]

I've had one of the TW boxes too, and I have no idea what you're talking about. I just went to it and tried, and I cannot find any hint of any "Series Manager" or anything that allowes me to say "record this program every week on this channel at this time, even though it's one half a dozen times during the week". I get ALL of them, or I can do ONE of them at a time.

Where do you see this option? How do you access it? Can you walk me through how to do this and where the option is? The only instructions I received with the box are a tiny, thin, slick color photo quick guide from TW. There were no details or manuals anywhere. I've found most everything else to be intuitive enough I didn't need more, but now I wonder if this option is even avialable to me, and if so, what else might I be missing??

Re:I have one

[markhb]

Someone else mentioned "Series Manager". On my terminal, if you pull up the Recorded Programs list ("List" button on the remote), there is a choice to hit the B button for a Preferences menu. This offers the "Schedule a new Manual Recording" option. There may be different software versions around as well.

Oh, and someone else complained about being unpaid beta testers for TW / SA. Well, isn't that what "early adopter" essentially means these days?

Remainder of my .sig: be the majority of voters.

Re:I have one

[HedRat]

Hit the "List" button then use the "C" (Series Manager). Hit the "SEL" (Select) Button and VOILA! there are ALL the options for managing how you want the Series Manager to perform - works like a champ.

Re:I have one

[Luigi30]

The 2000 series has FireWire, USB, S-Video, anything you can think of.

No Features, cheaper prices

[RhoryCalhoon]

Time Warner and other cable companies need to spend less time thinking of more features they can charge for and instead find ways to bring better service for lower prices. Once they figure that out, then they should move on to more features. I know in Boston cable can be 60 bucks a month for basic service.

Re:No Features, cheaper prices

[willtsmith]

You've completely missed the point of owning a utility.

Re:No Features, cheaper prices

[RhoryCalhoon]

It's not that I wouldn't enjoy the PVR with the cable box, it's just that knowing cable companies, it is more about being able to justify charging more, when they already charge in the 1-2 kidney range for service.

Re:No Features, cheaper prices

[Anonymous Coward]

I know in Boston cable can be 60 bucks a month for basic service

Oh Crap.
Cable anywhere can't be more than 10-20$ for
basic service. You can even get a sub-basic for
less than that if you ask.

Re:No Features, cheaper prices

[SpryGuy]

It's only $4.95 more a month, and the convenience and savings in video tapes more than compensates for that.

Re:No Features, cheaper prices

[Cpt_Kirks]

I know in Boston cable can be 60 bucks a month for basic service.

I'll bet DirecTV does good business in bean town.

Re:No Features, cheaper prices

[Lord_Dweomer]

This is News for nerds, not News for price-watchers. This is a cool new innovation on TW's part, and for what it offers its damn cheap. I never thought I'd say this, but nice going Time Warner.

Re:No Features, cheaper prices

[Anonym1ty]

This is News for nerds, not News for price-watchers.

Many nerds are tightwads

Uh huh

[acxr is wasted]

"The whole category has been about the customer being able to get control"

Really, who has control here? Given the fact that it's the cable companies themselves that are distributing the boxes and the software, it's pretty safe to assume that they have complete access to information regarding what shows you've watched, what you're recording, etc. This is just the next step towards the uber-specific TV commercial placement of the future. Buy, my pretties, buy!

Re:Uh huh

[willtsmith]

There is a potential privacy issue here. However, if they "anonymize" the info, I see no problem.

In fact, this could become a great improvement over the "nielsen" ratings model. We all know that the Nielsens are problematic. The sample size is way too small. Too many excellent programs get cancelled due to "poor ratings".

It would be awesome if what people were actually watching would get credit. A lot more quality "niche" shows would probably be more viable. Especially in the cable markets.

I say, that this would be great so long as they:
1) Allow individuals to "opt-out" for ANY reason.
2) Anonymize all the information that is streamed from the box. Make the specific source code open source so geeks can verify that "big brother" isn't watching what they are.

Re:Uh huh

[MikeTRose]

it's pretty safe to assume that they have complete access to information regarding what shows you've watched, what you're recording, etc

Scientific Atlanta FAQ says that no channel choice or program info goes upstream from the box to the provider. FWIW.

Re:Uh huh

[garfield1979]

They actually do not have any kind of tracking mechanism built into their machines, that technology hasnt evolved at the same pace as the digital TV has, thats not to say that it's not some software patch they can apply to it later. But i remember watching a TV show about how it all works and they just don't have the ressources to track what everyone is watching/recording at any given time.

Re:Uh huh

[Alizarin Erythrosin]

If I were watching tv with commercials tailored to my interests, then I might actually watch them instead of taking that time to, for example, get a drink or use the bathroom. Imagine watching a program and seeing a commercial for a sale at a local computer parts dealer, or some anime program showing on some channel... I'd be interested in that.

Re:Uh huh

[FatSean]

I don't think asking for the source is a realistic request...I bet they are banking on a closed platform to enforce the soon-to-come DMCA-type rules. Then they can prevent you from grabbing a pure digital copy, and they know that 99% of users would bother or couldn't deal with the inevitable back doors. But who really gives a shit? I mean, you can get all your shows, and even if they get some dumbass law that restricts how long you can save it, you can get a devent copy off through analog.

Re:Uh huh

[1000101]

i would rather see ads about products that i enjoy and use such as computers, sports, and beer than a couple ads for tampons, an ad for diamonds, or a ton of ads with annoying women selling clothes.

Re:Uh huh

[ONU CS Geek]

I kinda find that a little bit hard to believe. I used to work for Time Warner cable as a High Speed Data installer, and I know that once a week the DCT (Digital Cable Tunter) guys had to chase "Non-Responder" tickets...boxes that had stopped talking to the head-end.

I do know that when you get a SA DCT, they come "golden" from the box--meaning, as long as your tv doesn't get "hit," you'll get all of the premium channels that they have, but not the pay per views. Once that box is hit, and you scan through a channel that you're not subscribed for, it'll call the head end to see if you've 'subscribed' to the channel, and will be polled regurally to see if you've ordered any Pay Per Views. (by the way, the stories about people putting filters and getting all the pay per views that they want, is false--the box only has about a $100 limit, and that filter basically puts the box on the Non-Responder List--meaning you'll have a tech out within a month to make sure everything's hunkey-dorey.) The reason that they won't take a $50 and leave your box un-hit is because it's still listed as on your truck until it's hit...and then the cable guy's responsible for the equipment...and they don't want to have to have that $500 box taken out of their paycheck ;)

Re:Uh huh

[Fred Ferrigno]

... it'll call the head end to see if you've 'subscribed' to the channel, and will be polled regurally to see if you've ordered any Pay Per Views.

Now, I have no idea what I'm talking about, but if it prompts the cable company to see if you're subscribed, would it be terribly difficult to sit an intelligent box in between to trap those requests and say "yes" every time? This is along the lines of some of the more elaborate anti-piracy techniques in video games. Q3 and Black and White both reported in with home base, but both were compromised quickly.

Like I said, I know nothing about this, but it seems to me that these systems could be broken fairly easily if you had the right hardware and knew what you were doing, unlike me.

Re:Uh huh

[S-A tech]

The only thing the boxes report back to the cable headend about viewing is pay-per-view purchases. Reporting all viewing habits would overload the datapath back to the headend (it's only 1.5Mb/s per ~10,000 boxes).

Re:Uh huh

[ONU CS Geek]

From what I know and understand about the way DCT's work, even if you could do something like this, you'd only have 24 hours to do it before it would reqired to be "hit" again, or, it'll CYCO out (Call your Cable Operator). If you've got enough gumption, or enough free time, or enough money, anything can be done. I believe that the protocol is encrypted, and that the communications protocol is well kept. Then again, I'm just a former HSD Technician, and I really don't know a whole lot about the DCT side of things.

Re:Uh huh

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Yes, but I'd do it with a $5 DCT I picked up at a thrift store. That way, it's not in their database, and we only have to satisfy the DCT, not the headend.

With Mototorola digital boxes, theyre using SCTE DVS-178, which I believe is really similar to docsis. That is, a cable modem would have to be reprogrammed to listen/talk on different frequencies, but the modulation, and other peculiarities of the protocol are the same. Some cable modems like the older toshibas also have lots of internal programming ports... so this might be possible to change, but most importantly of all, they're damn easy to hook up to a computer, unlike the $10,000 lab equipment I checked on.

Could be fun, if anyone feels like helping.

Re:Uh huh

[Goth Biker Babe]

Of course! One of the advantages to the cable operators is target advertising. The broadcasters really wouldn't be happy if the providers gave their customers a way of avoiding the advertising as thats how the broadcasters earn their dosh. But advertisers would possibly pay more for transmission to a restricted audience if it knew that that audience is more likely to take notice of it's advertising.

Re:Uh huh

[glesga_kiss]

There is a potential privacy issue here.

There always has been. With digital cable, the telco can find out what channel you are watching at any time. I'm not sure how digital satelite works stateside, but in the UK the box has to be hooked up to a phone line to qualify for the "free installation". This dials home now and again, which is required for pay-per-view obviously, but no one knows what else gets uploaded.

It's nowt new. As you say, it has it's upside and it's downside.

Make the specific source code open source so geeks can verify that "big brother" isn't watching what they are.

This is the way forward, however I don't see the telcos doing that. They profit from things like advertising, and an open source box would certainally have mods to allow commercial skipping. Independent ones like Freevo and MythTV are the future.

Re:Uh huh

[Lord_Dweomer]

"This is just the next step towards the uber-specific TV commercial placement of the future. Buy, my pretties, buy!"

Personally, in a medium where I have no choice but to watch commercials, I'd rather see ones that are targeted towards me more accurately. Also, if they do collect data, they can have information about what ads are crap and what ads aren't based on the number of eyeballs. I work in advertising and I cannot begin to tell you how valuable that kind of information is. Its a double edged sword for the ad agency, but something that is becoming desired more and more by clients.

The other big issue which I'm surprised nobody has mentioned is that this huge shithole of reality tv that's been taking over tv lately is partially because of low spending on behalf of advertisers. This could give a lot more value to them, thus enabling the cable companies to raise their spot rates, and give them a chance to put some good tv back on the air. Or they could just pocket it which I think is a little more likely.

Re:Uh huh

[Anonymous Coward]

This is FAQ 8 from the PVR FAQ at cfl.mybrighthouse.com (Bright House is Time Warner):

"Does your company gather information about what I'm watching or from what I'm recording the same way as TIVO or SonicBlue Replay?

No. We respect our customers' privacy. Our PVR equipment will neither collect nor report information about our customers' viewing"

They are not talking about channel changes and whether you're allowed to watch a channel, they are talking about uploading information about what programs you watch on your PVR, when you watch them, etc.

Personally, as long as it's anonymous, I couldn't care less. I loved my TiVo, and didn't mind them using aggregate data one bit.

Re:Uh huh

[psxndc]

I agree with your intent, but I would modify your suggestion about opt-out: I think customers should opt-in for this service. I personally would do it. I don't care if TWC knows what I watch (mainly since the pacakge we now have doesn't include skinemax), and I'd opt in. But in general, opt-out is a bad policy.

And as much as I would love it if the world was open source, the code for this never would be. These are the same companies that fight people that make cable stealing chips. They're not going to open up the code hoping some geek in his spare time will make sure they're on the level, while 800 other black hats h4X0r the shit out of their cable boxes. Just not gonna happen

psxndc

Re:Uh huh

[Anonymous Coward]

yea...time warner/aol the king of marketing is going to let you "opt out" of anything.

the cable companies have got money pouring in from multiple angles...

one angle are you the subscribers. you pay money for a service to give you an option when the lousy reality tv shows come on the major networks.

second angle...advertisers...they market your eyeballs to advertisers.

businesses...they sell those muzak services to businesses.

and there are more but i'll stop there. if you think for one second that a cable company will ever do anything nice because it's the right thing to do, think again. they are only after your wallet.

they want to know what you watch and when. they want to know what websites you frequent and how often. they want to know who you call and how the other people you interact with have something in common with you.

they already have pages and pages of this stuff stored within their records. and it's only getting bigger.

Re:Uh huh

[Fred Ferrigno]

Maybe the encryption you speak of would cause problems, but the way I was thinking it would let "hits" through, and only come into action when the box requests permission to view restricted channels.

And?

[Alizarin Erythrosin]

My friend Jon got his Time Warner PVR for Digital cable in June... so this is new? (He lives in Orlando, FL)

Re:And?

[jpmoney]

We had ours in March in Austin, TX... woo for us I guess.

Its great and TW's digital cable, unlike others I've seen, has no commercials on the guide (other than whats showing on TV of course). I've also seen Adelphia's in Northern Virginia and I was about to puke with the terrible interface, ads on the guide, and overall crappiness.

Re:And?

[1lus10n]

not new at all. im in rochester NY and have had mine since last year.

Re:And?

[The Briguy]

Wow, I'm not the only person in Rochester (besides my friends) who reads slashdot?

Re:And?

[1lus10n]

Yeah there are quite a few of us.

#28 on the meetup list. ..... not that i could ever make it, i work way past 8pm .....

Re:And?

[Selivanow]

Wow...all of us from rochester. That means at
least people live here :) Anyways, anyone have any idea when the IEEE 1394 or VCR outpus will be turned on? I've had my box since last august and am still waiting for those features. I feel sorry for TW....these boxes haven't been too reliable for me, overheating and stuff.

Re:And?

[ragnarok]

I'm from Rochester and have had the DR for about a year also. I guess it's a geek thing.

Mine crashes pretty frequently too, about once a week. And the fact that it doesn't have the ability to not record reruns really pisses me off.

Re:And?

[Cpt_Kirks]

My friend Jon got his Time Warner PVR for Digital cable in June... so this is new? (He lives in Orlando, FL)

Don't you know? It's only news if it happens in NYC or LA. Everything else is "flyover land".

Re:And?

[whatch durrin]

Apparently, SA is in the process of trying to engineer the interfaces for the USB and Firewire ports. In searching for a job on Monster, I found this.

Re:And?

[FeltTip]

Wow! Rochester people on /.!

I love the DVR. Sure, the geeks here will complain about artifacts because of the compression, but give me a friggin' break. For $10 a month I'll take it.

Re:And?

[Selivanow]

Hey! I work for RadioShack....and only most of us
have blank stares! (Not myself, of course)

Anyways, it would be about time that the USB and Firewire were active. I just took a look at there web site and it claims that they are preparing to offer the option to record your recorded shows to your VCR w/o having to sit and watch it. This would be great for all of my kids shows.

Re:And?

[1lus10n]

i doubt they will ever turn them on. to them that would be allowing us to "steal" programming. or some other silly shiite.

i haven't had the occasion to have the thing over heat, of course i dont watch to much tv either.

Re:And?

[HedRat]

The ability is there. Pick the "List" button. Pick the "C" (Series Manager) button. Pick the "SEL" (Select) button and there are all you options for controlling "series". AND, it records by "Program Name" and will find the program on ANY channel at ANY time.

Re:And?

[ragnarok]

There's no "C" option after I hit "List". Sounds like I'm a rev behind.

Re:And?

[HedRat]

There are three colored buttons - A, B and C right below the Select Button. When the "LIST" display is up, the C button taked you to the Series Manager.

Re:And?

[ragnarok]

no, it doesn't.
Out of curiosity do you know which software your box is running? SARA or PASSPORT?
Try this: hold down the center "+" button on the set top box and see if the green 'mail' light flashes after 5 seconds. If it does, press the 'info' button. Then use the "->" button to scroll over a few pages and you should see the software versions.

Re:And?

[HedRat]

My box is running Passport, can't check the version at the moment. So your remote doesn't have a yellow triangle (A), a blue square (B) and a red circle (C) button(s) underneath the Select button and arrows? Those buttons are used for a number of different functions and one of them is to access Series Manager when the LIST screen is activated. There are several main options along with sub-options for each which control ALL aspects of Series Manager. It will record a show by name, without regard to channel, day of the week or time slot then you control the granularity of each. I've seen some pretty negative comments and comparisons to TiVo but as far as I'm concerned, there's NO CONTEST here. The SA8000 wins hands down. I haven't experienced even ONE of the problems I'm reading about and I've had mine for over a month here in Milwaukee. HTH.

Re:And?

[ragnarok]

My box is running SARA. I have those buttons but I do not have a 'Series Manager' screen. Believe me, I've looked all over for it.
The only series management options I get are 'record one episode' or 'record all episodes' when I record a new program.

I've had my SA8000 for over 6 months and I've experienced quite a few problems with crashes, garbled recordings, etc. I'm starting to think that the SARA software sucks compared to Passport.

Re:And?

[HedRat]

I'm beginning to believe that all the different "like it" / "hate it" comments about the box are really in fact about the software interface. In our area, all you get is Passport. I guess it depends on what the head-end is running and each area of the country decides which to use? Let me clarify the issue on something...when I select a program to record, off the GUIDE, I get the same options you describe...one or all. THEN, when you go to the LIST and see the program that it plans to record, that's when you hi-light it with the arrows and hit the red "C" button for Series Manager and control the granularity by pressing the SEL (Select) button. It could be that it FIRST has to have the program in its "to record" list BEFORE you can manipulate all instances of that program. That may be the part that you are missing? See if that helps...

Re:And?

[HedRat]

ragnarok,
My last comment probably doesn't pertain. I was just perusing the SA-8000 group on Yahoo and they all comment that the Series Manager options are only available with the Passport software...I know that's a bummer for you! If Passport is superior and more feature laden than Sara, then why wouldn't TW want to offer ALL their customers the better product? Doesn't make sense.

Re:And?

[HedRat]

As I was browsing Yahoo, I found this: http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/explorer_8000 /lst?.dir=/Cincy+TW+SA8000&.src=gr&.view=

It's a series of photos that someone took that shows ALL the options for Series Manager...just FYI.

hmm

[SlamMan]

"that money we were saving for a TiVo is up for grabs."

I'll take it!

Re:hmm

[nacturation]

• "that money we were saving for a TiVo is up for grabs."

I'll take it!

Congratulations. You're claimant #101. (There are 100 RIAA lawyers ahead of you in the line.)

uhoh

[Anonymous Coward]

if Time Warner starts up another linux distro, one or 2 existing ones will probably go bankrupt. Would you really want to replace slackware or gentoo with AOLinux? Christ, they could make Lindows look secure.

hmmm

[libnatel]

wonder how long it takes for riaa to start going after time-warner for allowing people to record movies and music vidoes with out paying for it.

oh no....

Re:hmmm

[Cpt_Kirks]

And I would guess the RIAA does not really give a shit about movies and maybe not even videos.

The "R" stands for "recording", as in songs. The MPAA and TV studios may not like it though (TW makes movies and TV too).

Well, I guess if you want it

[Gizzmonic]

Really, if you want it, I can't see any reason why not to get one.

Why don't you send the monkey you were saving for Ti-Vo somewhere else, like the EFF? (http://www.eff.org). They are having their annual fund drive, and I love their shows, especially british comedies. Plus you get the handy tote bag!

Seriously, if all cable companies were this generous, they'd completely be out of business by now. P.T. Barnum is smiling down from his grave...

Re:Well, I guess if you want it

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you send the monkey you were saving for Ti-Vo somewhere else, like the EFF?

Ok. [releases the monkey from its cage]

Re:Well, I guess if you want it

[willtsmith]

Have you ever used a digital cable box. Large portions of the screen are dedicated to advertising. This is likely a large portion of the motivation.

The other portion would be to encourage MORE people to use their Pay-Per-View Cable shows. The cable companies try really hard to take away large portions of the video rental market. It's cheap, clean and easy. No returns necessary.

If Digital Cable customers end up "renting" movies from PPV instead of the video store, these boxes will cost justify themselves. And don't forget, it's property of the cable company. If you bail, your box goes back and they'll rent it to someone else.

Re:Well, I guess if you want it

[shigelojoe]

I don't know what the EFF would do with monkeys, but hey, it's worth a shot.

Re:Well, I guess if you want it

[Nexzus]

I would order more Pay Per View movies if:

a) Our cable company offered PPV movies in at least Letterbox (anamorphic would be nice, though)

b) They showed the movies in True Dolby Digital 5.1 sound.

I've called Shaw about both points, and:

a) They said they used to, but people complained about not seeing the "whole movie" (qv)

b) They were rather ignorant about the sound issue, but try explaining the difference between a Dolby Digital 5.1 signal and a Digital Dolby Stereo signal to a Customer Service chimp and that it's not "my equipment is not set up right"

PS. My receiver automatically sets itself up for Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS or Prologic 2 just like most modern ones do, I assume.

Re:Well, I guess if you want it

[FireBreathingDog]

Have you ever used a digital cable box. Large portions of the screen are dedicated to advertising.

What the hell are you talking about? I've had Time Warner Digital Cable for over a year, and the only ads on Digital Cable are the exact same ones that would be there on standard service.

I was skeptical, but I've had a TW cable modem for over 2 years, and digital cable for over a year, and the service has been tremendous.

My old (Flashcom/Covad) DSL line would go out for periods of 8 hours on a monthly basis, but I've had *MAYBE* an hours worth of cable modem outages in over a year.

I couldn't be more satisfied, and I'm pretty psyched that I'll be able to get TiVo-like functionality soon

Re:Well, I guess if you want it

[FireBreathingDog]

Why don't you send the monkey you were saving for Ti-Vo somewhere else, like the EFF?

Why does the EFF need my monkey? They already have Stallman.

Re:Well, I guess if you want it

[Cpt_Kirks]

It's just that skulls all seem to be grinning...

Re:Well, I guess if you want it

[Physics Nobody]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is doing British comedies now? Sweet!

DVR in WI

[mcsoko]

We have had DVR from Time Warner here in Milwaukee for a few months now, it has revolutionized the way I watch TV. This means that I no longer have to watch crummy television. Only Simpsons, Family Guy, Futurama, and Knight Rider for me!

Thanks TW, you have saved my sanity!

Great! Oh...wait a minute...

[niko9]

I was almost salivating when I read the article, until I realised that I live in the Bronx.

We have Cablevision here, and the service just plain sucks. I'm paying sixty doallrs a month for basic cable with no premium channels. They have a monopoly here, I can't switch cable providers, and my building won't let me have a dish.

The only thing I can count on is for their prices to go up. I can't even get 24/7 pay-per-view porn like they do in Manhattan.

It costs twenty dollars a month for basic channels 2-13 recpetion. Twenty bucks! Some people don't pay that for internet access!

When are they going to regulate cable companies who can't regulate themselves.

Re:Great! Oh...wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's so bad, why don't you move?

Re:Great! Oh...wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not drop your cable service? That is, assuming you have a choice not to pay for cable. Use the time you would have spent watching TV doing something productive (or at least waste the extra time on surfing the web).

Re:Great! Oh...wait a minute...

[zztzed]

The cable company here charges $30/month for channels 2-13. I think if you want all the channels (including digital ones) it comes out to $80-90. And of course there's the receiver rental fee. So it could be worse.

Also, the owner of your building cannot prevent you from installing a satellite dish under one meter in diameter. See here for details.

Re:Great! Oh...wait a minute...

[afidel]

They HAVE to let you get a dish so long as you have an exclusive use area (read balcony or the like). See FCC rules and Section 207 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Re:Great! Oh...wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

What, and give up all that good crack? Hell no, buddy!

Re:Great! Oh...wait a minute...

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

As another user said, SHVIA prevents HOAs from banning satellite dishes.

Get a DirecTV/TiVo unit. 2 tuners, direct digital recording (no recompression), 30 hours of storage, and all of those great TiVo features (Season Pass, WishList).

It's about $175 for the box and installation, $40 per month for DirecTV service (including 130 channels and local channels) and $5 a month for the TiVo service.

Re:Great! Oh...wait a minute...

[pellis23]

Look up the SHVIA(Satellite Home Viewers [something] Act). Your landlord/homeowners association can not stop you from putting up a small dish (as long as it is positioned entirely on and over properly that you're leasing.

Re:Great! Oh...wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and my building won't let me have a dish.

Call the FCC. One of the few things the FCC does for John Q. Public is overturn local regulations regarding whether or not you can have an antenna for TV reception and a dish qualifies.

Re:Great! Oh...wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get satellite in an apartment even without a balcony.

I lived in a high-rise in NJ and the only TV option was crappy RCN. I had no balcony, BUT I had a window facing SW. I opened the glass window and placed a piece of plexiglass (available cut-to-size at Lowe's) then weatherproofed it .. and VOILA DirecTV in an apartment. Search usenet for more advice on how to do this.

Re:Great! Oh...wait a minute...

[Rogerborg]

Sure, because cheap TV is third on the bill of rights.

No... wait... you're an idiot. If you think you're paying too much, stop paying it.

Re:Great! Oh...wait a minute...

[TopShelf]

Exactly, right after cheap gasoline and guns, guns, guns!

Re:Great! Oh...wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

Federal regulations require your landlord to let you have a dish, amazingly enough. there are exceptions which I can't remember, for the same reason I can't remember where I read the regulations.

Re:Great! Oh...wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I knew SHIVA was responsable for the destruction of all creation.

What is the downside?

[sllim]

A year ago the TV people were crying that Tivos and other DVR devices would spell certain doom for free/commercial TV.
Then cable companies started talking seriously about pushing out there own DVR units.

Seemed pretty obvious to me that it had something to do with locking down certain features on the DVR's that the free/commercial TV people didn't like.

Has anyone found a downside yet?
The one reviewer seemed pretty pleased with the fast forward button. I thought for sure that would be one thing. I thought that they would restrict the speed so you were forced to watch commercials. Tivo's FF speed is pretty fast.

How about the ability for the cable companies to keep you from recording a program?
I am almost certain there is a programming flag that they can turn on to keep you from recording programs. It is supposed to be used for pay per view and the like, but tell me it isn't screaming for abuse.

Has anyone found any programs (or entire channels even) that they cannot record or time shift?

With my Tivo I have digital cable, and I have yet to be told I cannot time shift someone. I Tivo HBO all the time.

Re:What is the downside?

[generic-man]

One of the biggest hang-ups with DVRs is that some of them could automatically skip commercials. My ReplayTV 5040 does a passable job of skipping commercials: about 80% effective overall, so 20% of shows must be fast-forwarded manually. Sometimes, during those 20%, I get lazy and watch the commercials anyway.

ReplayTV's old owners, SonicBlue, faced litigation from many large TV networks over their ad blocking, so the forthcoming 5500 series will not have the automatic commercial skip functionality. TiVo's investors include some players in the TV programming industry, so TiVo has never supported automatic commercial skip. (Source: PVR Compare)

ReplayTV caved in to industry pressure. TiVo is part-owned by big industry players. Of course, these new set-top boxes will have feature sets dictated by content providers.

Don't like it? Build a Linux-based DVR, which should be feature-complete by the time The Simpsons' 16th season premieres.

Re:What is the downside?

[phaetonic]

I have had the PVR from Time Warner for roughly three months. There are a few channels I've found which brings up a box saying it is not allowed to be recorded if you try to record. Channels like Cartoon Channel in Spanish, Music on Demand, Local Radio, and I'm ASSUMING HBO and other premium channels.

Re:What is the downside?

[heinousjay]

I have Comcast DVR, and they won't let me record the music channels or the on demand channels.

Everything else, including the movie channels and regular pay per view, is fair game.

Re:What is the downside?

[Slurpee]

I thought that they would restrict the speed so you were forced to watch commercials.

An earlier post said that to get the DVR you had to pay an extra $5 per month. Thats $5 per subscriber. I'm not sure how much advertising profit they get *per subscriber* currently, but I'd bet it would be a *lot* less then $5 per person. Cable companies get revenue from two main sources. You, and the advertisers. They have no problems shutting out advertisers if you will pay them to.

Don't forget the $5 they get per subscriber is almost pure profit. They have to buy digital boxes anyway, so why not keep the extra revenue themselves? Plus by owning the technology themselves, they set up lots of other revenue stream possibilities. "Premium" adverts that can't be skipped, targetted advertising, and all sorts of other benifits.

And until advertisers start saying "I won't pay to advertising on your cable network cause they can skip my advert", the cable company is still earning their advertising dollars.

Unlike the RIAA, the cable companies know that technology progresses, and generally look to the new technology for new revenue possibilities (don't think they'll let you pirate movies though).

If they see a market for a product...they will go for it. If they can create more products by going digital and DVR, they will do that.

(background...I've done iTV dev work for cable companies, and have heard a little about the types of revenue models possible, but I certainly wouldn't call myself an expert)

Re:What is the downside?

[bnet41]

I have this box, and all I do is record premium channels. This box is really nice, and does a pretty good job. I am amazed at how many people I know have it.

Re:What is the downside?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had Time-Warner's DVR for 10 months now. The fast-forward is just OK. There are 3 speeds, but there can be a lag so by the time you see the start of your show, hit the button, and it registers, you are over a minute into it again, then you have to rewind. I know someone at TW who said they wanted a commercial skip but advertisers screamed and it was turned down.

There is also a problem recording Pay-Per-View. On other channels, you can set up a recording in the future. On PPV, you have to purchase the show, wait for it to start, then hit record. It won't work in the future.

There are also frequent updates right now. The box frequently reboots with a signal from HQ, sometimes interrupting a show you are taping (although at least they are good about doing it in the middle of the night nmost times).

These issues aside, it is still great. MUCH cheaper and a better value than any alternative. I pay $6/month above digital cable. That's it. No $300 box plus $20/month subscription.

Re:What is the downside?

[cmay666]

I live in Charlotte, NC and have had a DVR box for about 4 months now. While I agree it has less features than Tivo I also didn't have to pay $400 up front and $10/month. I don't need recommended programming as I already watch too much TV, so I'm not missing that feature. Instead it's $6.95/month AND it integrates seemlessly with the digital cable on-screen menu system, which I like.

Re: ff speed - the fastest setting fast forwards at about 24 sec intervals. Plenty fast to get through a commercial break during shows in about 4-5 seconds.

And the only channels you can't record are the "On-Demand" channels (i.e. HBO On-Demand, et al.) and ppv channels. You can still time-shift those, although it's thru AOL TW's data center (as opposed to your box's HD).

Overall I'm extremely happy with the DVR. Just can't wait for a critical mass to get one and finally see some hacks for the firewire/USB ports for PC so I can start saving more Family Guys and Daily Shows... ;)

Re:What is the downside?

[devaudio]

I have both the DVR (since January in Syracuse) and 2 tivos. The FF speed on the TW offering is much much slower than the Tivo one, so you do see commercials, albeit at high speed. No programming skip buttons there. They did a study and found people still get the gist of commercials played at high speeds. There are channels you can not record (on demand, and some pay per views) and they do have flags to prevent you from recording regular digital channels, but all are disabled so far. It also does get much slower with the more programs you record. I would say the only adventage over tivo is the ability to record 2 channels at once. Other than that, tivo rocks it's world

Re:What is the downside?

[Some Dumbass...]

A year ago the TV people were crying that Tivos and other DVR devices would spell certain doom for free/commercial TV.
Then cable companies started talking seriously about pushing out there own DVR units.

Frankly, I'm not surprised. Right now it is the cable companies who get money from you every month now matter how many/few commercials you see, and it's a cable companies who are renting (and making money off) this Explorer 8000 unit. Sounds like the cable companies know how to make a profit. Here's the simple formula:

1) The more channels/services you get from them, the more money they make.

2) The more restrictions which networks and advertisers place upon the consumer, the less valuable the cable companies' product appears, which leads to customers who aren't willing to pay as much for cable and who start looking into satellite/broadband TV.

3) Thus, the cable companies supply services which other industries may not want them to supply (PVRs, VoIP) while playing just nicely enough with those other companies and/or the government to avoid real problems (lawsuits? regulation?)

Re:What is the downside?

[rjey]

Hey heinousjay do you have any info on this comcast box? I've spoken with them on the phone a few times and they swear they have no DVR.

Re:What is the downside?

[jratcliffe]

Don't forget the $5 they get per subscriber is almost pure profit. They have to buy digital boxes anyway, so why not keep the extra revenue themselves?

These boxes are a LOT more expensive than a traditional cable box, to the tune of $250-300 add'l per unit. It takes a lot of months of $5/month service fees to recoup that investment. The main reason they're willing to make the investment is that it helps keep viewers from dropping cable entirely and going to satellite.

Re:What is the downside?

[Slurpee]

These boxes are a LOT more expensive than a traditional cable box, to the tune of $250-300 add'l per unit. It takes a lot of months of $5/month service fees to recoup that investment. The main reason they're willing to make the investment is that it helps keep viewers from dropping cable entirely and going to satellite.


Digital boxes are much more expensive then Analouge boxes. But getting DVR functionality in a digital box is not expensive at all.

Cable are going digital anyway for all the other benifits. Other revenue streams, iTV, better use of bandwidth etc etc.

Re:What is the downside?

[sdpinpdx]

DircTivos won't record the DTV music channels either, but PPV is integrated nicely into the software. We always buy our PPV movies in big batches, and watch them later. Sometimes months later.

Re:What is the downside?

[heinousjay]

Probably depends on where you live. Northern Virginia for me, where StarPower is attempting to encroach, so Comcast has some incentive to move here.

Re:What is the downside?

[jratcliffe]

Wrong. The DVR boxes are on the order of $400-450 - standard digital boxes are $150-200.

Re:What is the downside?

[Slurpee]

Wrong. The DVR boxes are on the order of $400-450 - standard digital boxes are $150-200.

Where are you getting this data from? That sounds extraordinarily expensive for what is essentially an extra harddrive (plus tuner). Do you know what brand their $150 one is? And perhaps their $450 one?

On the other hand, perhaps their current digital STBes are very very limitted.

In Australia, Foxtel is going to be releasing digital STBes next year, and I think their base unit is the PACE DVR box with OpenTV middleware. I believe they are costing in the range of $5-600 AU each. I have friends working on it there.

6 months ago I was working on Optus's digital TV roll out, using Pace digital STBes with Liberate middleware. They cost around $800 AU each. But we were only doing a trial, and thus didn't have the economies of scale. The liberate middleware takes a lot more power to run than OpenTV. Though the box we were using couldn't do DVR, we had had the power too (just needed a HD).

anyway, I would be iteresting in hearing what sort of digital STBes they are buying at either $150 or $450 (assuming they are both digital, and we are talking about mass produced units).

Re:What is the downside?

[jratcliffe]

$150 will get you a basic Motorola DCT 2000 (entry-level digital box), while an advanced box with DVR like the Sci Atlanta can run $400-500, depends on the drive capacity and the volume of the order.

Is it just me, or...

[SuperBanana]

...is this story a blatant product placement? It reads like MarketDroid(TM) output. Nevermind that it's freakin' -enormous-...

Yuck

[Bruha]

I've seen Time Warner's digital cable.. yes you dont have to compress it becuase it's already compressed. And it's horrible at that.. Just look into a dark area of a picture and you'll see the compression adjusting and all kinds of artifacts.

DirectDvr for DirectTv is much better becuase the picture quality is higher due to the extra bandwidth the satelite can play with.

Re:Yuck

[NetJunkie]

Put DSS on a big TV and compare to my TW digital cable. DSS is junk on a big TV...the pixelation is FAR worse than TW cable. I pick up DSS in the fall/winter for NFL Sunday Ticket and sometimes I can barely read the names on the uniforms.

Plus, TW gives me more hi-def channels..so that's a plus.

Re:Yuck

[sabernar]

I have DirecTV. One of the HDTV units with the double dish. The enormous compression on most of the channels is embarrassing. The pixelation is out of control. Artifacts everywhere. They really need to do something about it, but I've called them and they seem pretty clueless about it all.

Re:Yuck

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen Time Warner's digital cable.. yes you dont have to compress it becuase it's already compressed. And it's horrible at that.. Just look into a dark area of a picture and you'll see the compression adjusting and all kinds of artifacts.

I've had TW cable for years, and on certain channels that get less bandwidth, it is noticeable, but certainly not horrible. And on channels with lots of bandwidth (HBO, et. al.) they look fucking great.

And this is stretched out on my 50" widescreen.

BTW, how's HD on DirecTV? On TW I've got ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS, WB, HBO, Showtime, and Discovery Theatre... all in glorious HD. ESPN HD is coming soon. For no extra charge, other than the $7 monthly for the HD receiver box.

DirectDvr for DirectTv is much better becuase the picture quality is higher due to the extra bandwidth the satelite can play with.

I seriously doubt satellite TV has more bandwidth available than a fat copper wire coming into my house. Can someone prove or disprove this? I've seen DirecTV at my boss's house, and it looks like horrible pixelated SHIT. So I really don't know wtf you're talking about here.

Re:Yuck

[iantri]

I don't know if you've ever seen any Canadian digital satellite, but StarChoice up here is really awful. The movie channels are fine, but the rest is so-so.. the main channels of the major networks, i.e. CFTO and CBLT are poor looking but the smaller channels are even worse.. CHEX and the Game Show Network, for example have ridiculous amounts of compression artifacts visible constantly.

My C-band dish isn't getting replaced till I can't get programming and/or replacement parts..

Re:in case of slashdotting, part two of three

[Anonymous Coward]

To get video on demand, a cable subscriber must first subscribe to digital cable service, which also generally features more channels, better picture quality and an interactive program guide. Almost all of the nation's 72 million cable subscribers now have access to digital cable, though only about 21 million have signed up so far, according to Yankee Group estimates. Of those 21 million homes, about 10.3 million have access to video on demand, according to the Yankee Group.

Digital subscribers may not even know they have video on demand because in its most basic incarnation, the service does not cost extra (over the surcharge for digital cable); it is priced by use, as with scheduled pay-per-view television. Time Warner video-on-demand customers, for instance, pay $3.95 for a new movie and then may watch it as many times as they like for 24 hours.

"V.O.D. today is largely driven by movies," Mr. Kishore said.

The other incarnation is known as subscription video on demand, which allows users who pay a flat fee, perhaps $6.95 a month, to receive unlimited access to a certain subset of programming. HBO On Demand, a favorite of viewers like Mr. Mansour, allows users unlimited access to HBO programs like "The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City," in addition to a selection of films that are currently playing on HBO.

Digital Video Recorders

Because of the technical nature of satellites, which generally have to beam the same information to millions or hundreds of thousands of homes, satellite providers like DirecTV and EchoStar are not able to offer video on demand. Instead, the satellite providers are counting on integrating TiVo-like digital video recorders, or D.V.R.'s, directly into satellite converter boxes.

"I am not that alarmed by V.O.D.," Terry L. Ferguson, DirecTV's vice president for business development and research, said in a phone interview. "I discovered in our talks with gay BDSM figure Rob Malda that tt is an interesting kind of feature, but a D.V.R. can do all that and more and provides more flexibility."

While a stand-alone digital recorder like TiVo or ReplayTV can work with any kind of homosex service, satellite providers turned the technology to initial advantage by offering boxes integrating such recorders while cable companies did not.

The Yankee Group estimates that about 2.4 million homes in the United States now have some sort of digital video recorder. For its part, TiVo says it has about 703,000 customers, including DirecTV subscribers. (DirecTV offers a set-top box with an integrated digital video recorder that uses TiVo technology; EchoStar's counterpart does not.)

Those figures suggest that there are about 1.7 million homes with a non-TiVo digital video recorder. OpenBSD leader Theo De Raadt says there are 1.4 users of OpenTiVoBSD. Bob Scherman, editor and publisher of Satellite Business News, estimated that EchoStar had about 750,000 to 800,000 of those users.

Cable companies are making a push in the same direction. Time Warner says it has deployed about 150,000 total boxes with digital video recorders built in, scattering them among 27 of the company's 31 geographic markets. Comcast has not yet introduced boxes with such recorders except in test marketing, but intends to offer commercial service later this year. "It is clearly something that consumers are interested in," said David N. Watson, executive vice president for sales, marketing and customer service for Comcast's core cable operation.

Cable operators believe that an integrated recorder can be superior to a stand-alone device like TiVo because the integrated unit could be easier to use. TiVo, naturally, has a different perspective.

Eventually, consumers may gain the benefits of such recorders without installing new hardware at all. AOL Time Warner, for instance, is in the early stages of developing a product meant to allow viewers to use a hard drive at a cable company's office to record programming and pause live television, as TiVo does.

Pictures?

[preric]

Can anyone take some pictures of their TW unit? With the serials blurred of course... would love to see the back and (for the daring and screwdriver handy) insides...

Re:Pictures?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had one for almost a year now in Albany, NY and I, uh... have a "friend" who has been trying to take it apart and figure out a way to rip the video off of the internal hard drive, (no luck so far sorry). I have , I mean, my "friend" has taken some nice photos of the connectors on the rear of the unit and the motherboard and hard drive inside...

Please mirror these photos if you can, I don't want to lose the good graces of my web provider: mirror me!

Re:Pictures?

[devaudio]

don't take it apart! It sends traps upstream to let people know when you do it. It's in your cable agreement not to do it. Very draconian, but there is no way I see to prevent it from sending the signal

Re:Pictures?

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Wouldn't mind seeing those myself...

Please check out my website devoted to this stuff. Contributions welcome....

Compression

[badasscat]

I'm not sure I believe there's no recompression done to the cable signal. Are you really telling me that this is taking the digital signal, leaving it digital, and simply storing an MPEG-2 stream (or whatever it is) as it comes in through the cable on the hard drive? If so, I would like to read more in-depth about this box (not just a Flash demo) - anybody got a better link?

Knowing how ass-backwards Time Warner usually is and how technology like this is often trailing-edge rather than leading-edge, I would have thought the box is recompressing the signal after converting it to analog just like every other DVR on the market. The fact that it looks so good could be for any number of reasons - a higher bit-rate or better compression algorithm (MPEG-4?) or whatever. If not, this is really a revolutionary device.

Does anyone have any more information on this? And what sort of record times do you get with it? With highest quality on TiVo you get about 20 hours on an 80GB hard drive; that's MPEG-2 decoding (you'd get more if it was MPEG-4).

Re:Compression

[willtsmith]

Agreed.

They may have a really slick MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 transcoding system going here. MPEG-4 makes more sense for more content. It also makes the content produceers less jittery (as far as a recording technology). Despite it's EXCELLENT quality, it still doesn't represent things as nicely as MPEG-2.

Re:Compression

[astrashe]

I'm pretty sure that it doesn't recompress. I have one of these boxes.

First of all, the box, beyond being a DVR, is also a normal digital cable box -- it has all the same functinality. If it does recompress, it would have to decompress the incoming signal then recompress it, all in the same box. I just can't imagine anyone building that. It makes more sense for it to just dump the incoming data stream to the disk, and defer decompression until you're watching it.

Second of all, there's no visible difference between a live digital cable program and a time shifted program, although there isn't much of a difference between live and timeshifted analog cable programs either.

I haven't used a tivo, and I'm sure those are very nice as well (or better, for all I know), but this is a very sweet box.

Re:Compression

[Chris Pimlott]

I would have thought the box is recompressing the signal after converting it to analog just like every other DVR on the market.

The DirecTiVo (TiVo for DirecTV systems) has always recorded the DirecTV stream directly without reencoding.

Re:Compression

[rusty0101]

I would have thought the box is recompressing the signal after converting it to analog just like every other DVR on the market.

I don't know where you are getting your information, but while stand alone tivos, replays, and if they exist stand alone ultimate-tvs all do compress the anlaog signal they receive, direcTiVos and DirecTV UltimateTV receivers simply decrypt the digital stream from DirecTV, and re-encrypt it before storing the digital stream onto the hard drives. This is why there is no "compression setting" on these systems. The compressed stream from DirecTV is about as compressed as the high compression setting of a SA Tivo, while being about as high quality as the low compression(high quality) setting.

There is some variability between manufacturers on the playback quality. The only time I have noticed pixilization on my Philips DirecTiVo has been duing bad rains. I have heard people complain about the quality of playback on other units.

Go to Google and look up "Tivo Community DirecTiVo playback quality" and start looking for reports of quality to determine which system may be best for you.

So far as I know no digital broadcast system is streaming Mpeg-4 yet. There may be a couple of Internet based companies trying it out, but it is too cutting edge for most businesses these days. If you want to get the rights to do so, this may be a way to sell cable over DSL. You will want a lot of bandwidth at the head end however, even though you will not have a lot of customers initially. I would also recomend using multi-cast to get around bandwidth issues initially. Figuring out what networks to multi-cast and what to uni-cast will be an ongoing decision making situation.

-Rusty

Re:Compression

[snillfisk]

I'm not sure I believe there's no recompression done to the cable signal. Are you really telling me that this is taking the digital signal, leaving it digital, and simply storing an MPEG-2 stream (or whatever it is) as it comes in through the cable on the hard drive?

There are several good reasons for just keeping the already preprocessed MPEG2 signal, since this leaves the engineers with a much simpler software design (no need to add an MPEG-4 encoder, cheaper to produce (something which probably matters a lot when its being pushed by a company without a cost for the end user)) -- there is really (as far as i can see) no technical reason for not just storing the MPEG2 stream. Since the device already has a 80 GB harddrive, the amount of recording mentioned should be possible without any big problems (keep in mind that it's market droid mumbo jumbo, "up to" etc). Broadcast NTSC quality should make up something in the area of 3 - 6 mbit/s, depending on the amount of action and detail in the original material:

80GB / 3mbit/s = 218.448s ~60 hrs

With a variable bitrate, there should really not be any problem with storing 50hrs of streamed MPEG2 content onto a 80GB disk -- depending on the type of program stored (and it's content). If this thing only could be available in norway soon ..

Re:Compression

[Macdude]

Are you really telling me that this is taking the digital signal, leaving it digital, and simply storing an MPEG-2 stream (or whatever it is) as it comes in through the cable on the hard drive?

That's exactly what it does, of course it's not a plain MPEG2 (or whatever) format signal, it's encrypted. On playback the digital stream is simply sent to the same part of the box that decodes the live signal. Think of it as a buffer, it's just adding a delay between the reception and playback.

Knowing how ass-backwards Time Warner usually is and how technology like this is often trailing-edge rather than leading-edge, I would have thought the box is recompressing the signal after converting it to analog just like every other DVR on the market. The fact that it looks so good could be for any number of reasons - a higher bit-rate or better compression algorithm (MPEG-4?) or whatever. If not, this is really a revolutionary device.

It's not leading edge technology and it's certainly not revolutionary -- Direct TIVO does the same thing with the Satellite signal, as do some other systems. It's much simpler (read cheaper) to just store the digital stream then to decode to analogue then reencode to digital. The low processing requirements are why they can record two shows while playing a third show.

Does anyone have any more information on this? And what sort of record times do you get with it?

As the slashdot summary says: "80 GB drive, which equals an estimated 50 hours of digital cable programming". I understand not reading the article, but at least read the summary. That said I'm sure that's an average, different channels have different bit rates. You'll probably get significantly less recording time if all you're recording is PPV...

With highest quality on TiVo you get about 20 hours on an 80GB hard drive; that's MPEG-2 decoding (you'd get more if it was MPEG-4).

With this set, as wityh DirectTIVO, you get what could be called BEST all the time. Lowering the quality would involve decoding and reencoding the signal which, do to the processing power available in such a box, would likely result in "Medium" quality having larger files than Best.

Re:Compression

[badasscat]

while stand alone tivos, replays, and if they exist stand alone ultimate-tvs all do compress the anlaog signal they receive, direcTiVos and DirecTV UltimateTV receivers simply decrypt the digital stream from DirecTV, and re-encrypt it before storing the digital stream onto the hard drives.

Ok, perhaps I should have been clearer - forgive me for being a bit hung over tonight (work party). I can understand DirecTiVo units simply storing the DirecTV MPEG-2 stream on the hard drive. What I was specifically asking about was non-recompressed digital cable signals on a DVR. I don't believe any DVR does this and for me, it's important because while I loved DirecTV when I had it, my current apartment building landlord will not allow a dish.

So maybe it's not as "revolutionary" as I said it was, but for me, if a non-compressed signal is what this thing does, it's still a major plus over all of the available alternatives - including building my own HTPC as I've been in the process of for a while (I'm running a TiVo in the meantime).

Standard TiVo does recompress and there is a noticeable drop in quality even at the highest quality setting (which is also the setting used for live TV, so it's basically all the time). It's not a huge drop, but I am a big stickler for image quality and was not particularly happy with the quality of digital cable even before installing my TiVo, let alone after (when it got worse).

I absolutely hate the idea of giving more money to Time Warner and there are some distinctive features TiVo has that I don't think I'd want to give up (suggestions, wish lists, etc.), not to mention Lord knows what kinds of access controls TWC would put on this thing. But this might be just enough to get me to ditch my TiVo in favor of a combo of the Explorer 8000 and my HTPC (which I could still run off either a split cable or through the regular A/V outputs to capture shows I'd want to keep without dealing with access controls).

Re:Compression

[FireBreathingDog]

Ok, perhaps I should have been clearer - forgive me for being a bit hung over tonight (work party). I can understand DirecTiVo units simply storing the DirecTV MPEG-2 stream on the hard drive. What I was specifically asking about was non-recompressed digital cable signals on a DVR

The digital cable I have (TW) seems to use MPEG-2

Re:Compression

[JFMulder]

This isn't revolurionary in the least, I've the same box (Atlanta Scientific) here for months in Canada, and it had been already offered for a few months before I got one. But it sure is nice tought. And there is NO LOSS while taping a show. The only grudge I've had in the past with the system is that sometimes I would get decompression squares or image freeze, more than usual. Turned out the signal that came into my house wasn't strong enough, so they had to install a booster. Everything thing works a 100% fine now. It even has TV on demand, so you can order a TV show, play, rewind, fastward, instant replay as you want. I though it used the hard drive, but it turns out our HDless model in the living room is also able to have video on demand, and it's as fast as with Explorer 8000. Now, if I could only get my hands on the HDTV model (there's no HDTV with an hard drive at this time tough), and I'd be in Nirvana.

Re:Compression

[The Lynxpro]

It would make even more sense if the cable companies would "broadcast" their digital cable signal in MPEG4 instead of MPEG2...but seeing the fact that they have been so slow to eliminate the real bandwidth hog (analog cable), I won't hold my breath waiting for such an improvement...

Re:Compression

[jefft]

I would have thought the box is recompressing the signal after converting it to analog just like every other DVR on the market.

The Dishnetwork PVR systems do direct digital recording of the stream. The first one, DishPlayer 7100, came out 4 years ago.

I always wonder why these systems don't get more attention, Dishnetwork has had these out almost as long as Tivo and has shipped many more units.

Re:in case of slashdotting, part three of three

[Anonymous Coward]

Satellite subscribers still have access to more high-definition programming than most cable customers. For instance, DirecTV's HDTV package includes ESPN, the new HDNet service, HBO, Showtime, some pay-per-view movies and some sporting events. But cable companies may be able to close the gap by offering more high-definition programming from local stations and network affiliates - a challenge for satellites, which have limited ability to serve many different areas. With Cablevision's satellite launching this month, the competitive equation between cable and satellite providers becomes even more complex. Cablevision has said little about when and where it might offer satellite service, but it is hoping that its new satellite will eventually allow it to use new forms of video compression that will make it easier for a satellite to deliver more local high-definition signals. Wilt Hildenbrand, Cablevision's executive vice president for engineering and technology, said in a telephone interview that he hoped that the new compression system, known as MPEG-4, would become available for consumer television over the next two years.

Making a Choice

In all, the array of services has made choosing between cable and satellite more difficult. Mr. Kishore, the Yankee Group analyst, said that for consumers, the choice boils down to what services they value most. "The first issue is that satellite has traditionally given you a bit more personalization in terms of content; the way they design their packages has given consumers more flexibility," he said. "The second is that you can't do V.O.D. on satellite, so if you're a very high movie watcher and you have limited flexibility in your schedule, then that's an important reason to go with cable. Third, for customer care, satellite has tended to rank high."
Known web critic and human rights' activist Michael Sims said "for believers in fascism such as myself, the terms 'freedom' and 'choice' have vary negative connotations".

And as for integrated digital video recorders and HDTV, he said, "cable may not have these services available now, so if you want those now you might have to go to satellite."

In a year, of course, all of those equations could change, and probably will.

Is that per box?

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Does anyone know if the $10/mo is per box? We have 4 cable boxes at the house, and it would be nice to upgrade but an added $40 would suck. does anyone know? The timewarner website is of no help.

Re:Is that per box?

[arudloff]

Here in Orlando, it's roughly $10 a box. Here's the catch though: It's in addition to the rental fee your already paying, so..

We have two digital cable boxes and pay something like $6 for the first upgrade, and $12 for the second.

Overall, I love mine. TiVO has a better interface by far though, but it kicks the crap out of the ReplayTV we have in the living room. The best part is the dual tuner and the picture in picture.

Oh.. And.. Check this out.. On the box, hit the button between the direction arrows and the enter button and hold it until it beeps. At that point, hit them again.. It's the diagnostic screen where you can view the units IP and all sorts of fun stuff. It looks like it might not be long before cable modems and your cable box become the same unit.

Re:Is that per box?

[S-A tech]

Currently the 8000 can only play back to itself. S-A knows how to and is working on 'Multi-room PVR'. What the cable companies will charge for that is up to them.

Re:Is that per box?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have had mine in Albany NY for almost.... 6 months?

I have two and TW only charges me the extra $5 once for the "service."

A couple of notes - some people were discussing that it doesn't handle "Season Pass" stuff well. This is totally true. When you record you can tell it to tape this single episode or "all" which will get you every time the show comes. I love the Tour de France, but I had to set up manual recordings to tape it otherwise I would have gotten the 8AM show, and the 3PM, 5PM, 8PM, 1AM replay on OLN.

Also, the system has no way that I can find of showing you how much space you have left on the HDD.

The two boxes won't talk to each other. This would be nice, but I can understand why they don't.... yet. It had better be coming.

Both of my original units failed and I had to take them back for replacement. They lock up about once a week, and sometimes if the box is busy it locks you out. There have been many times where I have been rewinding a show and gotten to the point I wanted and had the box not respond to my commands for 2 or 3 minutes. (Actual minutes, I am not exagerating.)

The box also has some issues with watching a show that it is currently recording. Play back of recorded shows is done on chanel 950 (on my system - contrary to what someone said you can't tape two shows and watch a third. The system has two tuners and needs one for playback.) If you go to the saved show listing and choose a show that is currently being recorded you are watching it on channel 950, but the other tuner is taping it on whatever it is. When the show is done recording, no matter were you are in the show, playback will stop. You then have to start over.

This brings me to another complaint. There is no "go to time" feature. This should be incredibly simple to do, but it doesn't have it. When the box craps out on you, you can't say "go 20 minutes in" and start there, you have to fast forward. If you tune to the channel it is recording part way through you can rewind to the beginning, but there is no "go to beginning" for shows that are currently being recorded. This is a MAJOR pain in the arse. So much so that I have almost thrown the thing out the window on many occations.

All that said, I would never go back to watching TV the regular way again. And for $5/month....hell yeah, I'll pay.

Slashdot - always good for news you already know.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't remember the last time I actually learned about something off of Slashdot. A news headline comes in on one of my other RSS feeds well before... but this has to be a record in tardiness.

Time Warner DVRs have been available in Columbus, OH for months. Almost the beginning of the year!

Chalk another one up to the wonderful prompt news material that reaches the pages of Slashdot.

Cult of Tivo

[toupsie]

I have a Tivo DVR and love it. However, I think people are getting a little bit too much into it. We must be getting close to the apocalypse when there is finally a convention for people that refuse to watch live television and feel the need to discuss it while gambling and eating at buffets. I don't think I will be hanging out in Vegas that week. Makes you wish that terrorism futures market was still running. Damn you, Poindexter!

Good but not with out it's problems

[papasui]

I'm in Oshkosh, WI and I've had one for about 4 months now. Overall it's great, but there's little things that I wish they would iron out with a firmware upgrade. When you choose to record all episodes of a show it records all occurances, so you might record the same show 5 times in the same day if it's aired multiple times on multiple channels. It also has a tendency to crash once in a while and need to be factory reset. The AV inputs and the firewire connectors can't be used right now. But overall it's a great box, and well worth the money. I work 2nd shift and it lets me catch all the shows I miss during primetime and the ability to pause live tv is especially useful when my wife (seriously I have mod points and I got a wife) is feeling extra emotional. I work for Charter and I'm still waiting to see the DVR they have rolling out this fall in Minnesota.

Re:Good but not with out it's problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, looks like she has nice jugs, let's have another photo with the twins out in the cold air.

Re:Good but not with out it's problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Not exactly. I've had mine in Waukesha for about 3 months. When you set up to record a program, there is an option to "record all instances", or just to record the first time a program in a series is aired.

I found this after it drove me crazy that it was recording every freakin' episode of "It's good to be". Yes, my wife set that one up.

Re:Good but not with out it's problems

[JJahn]

Definitely had these in Wisconsin for a while. I live near Milwaukee and have been hearing radio ads for the damn things for quite a while now. Maybe if I wasn't stuck in a Charter area I would get one but its just too damn bad for me.

Re:Good but not with out it's problems

[Anonymous Coward]

When you choose to record all episodes of a show it records all occurances, so you might record the same show 5 times in the same day if it's aired multiple times on multiple channels.

Down in Orlando, FL, we have the Explorer 8000, and our firmware must be newer, because I have the option of only recording a series on a certain channel within a certain time period...

I wish they would add wishlists and HD! I have spoken with them about HD, and they are supposedly working on a DVR unit that supports it.

Re:Good but not with out it's problems

[badmammajamma]

Damn dude, your wife is a babe.

Re:Good but not with out it's problems

[Anonymous Coward]

On my TW box you CAN change it to record a series on only specific days, times, and/or channels. Just go into the "List" then press "C" for "Series Manager", select the series, then adjust the recording options.

Re:Good but not with out it's problems

[ssstraub]

Serious question since you work for Charter...

Are all their customers forced to have incredibly sub-par "tv guide" screens with their digital cable package? Ours shows a measly half hour in FULL SCREEN format and is 1/3 ads.

If you have ever seen a Time Warner guide, you'd understand why I'm complaining.

But seriously, is this something that can be fixed by exchanging the digital tuner with another brand or something like that? I honestly can't believe that Charter's only choice is this terrible terrible guide that shows only a half hour in the full screen guide.

Re:Good but not with out it's problems

[HedRat]

It can do what you are asking. Hit the "LIST" button, hit the "C" (Series Manager) button. Hit the "SEL" (Select) button and THERE are all your series manager options!!

Uhh..

[Barret7SC]

Well, I've had the SA 8000 for a while with Cox in Northern VA.

What sucks is that it re-compresses everything that it records. It could be that none of the channels are truly digital. The picture quality is just OK, DirectTivo is loads better.

If you hold down the select button while powering you can get a status screen to see what's going on behind the scenes.

Re:Uhh..

[S-A tech]

The box does not do any recompressing of the digital channels. If you record an analog channel, usually anything below channel 100, the box has to real-time encode the analog to mpeg. If your cable has some noise on it, the encoding get that too. Digital channels should play back as clear as the broadcast. That said some cable operators compress the signal before it leaves there headend. Play with live recording some and see if the poor playback quality is on the analog channels. If it is, well unfortunately high quality realtime mpeg encoders cost more than $10/month.

Just one question...

[NanoGator]

... commercial skip?

Re:Just one question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, as Homer would say, it's the button labeled "Fhh Fhh".

You're lucky!

[toupsie]

I was a RCN customer in Manhattan that was told I was getting "high speed" internet access. Ended up with a one-way cable modem (telco upstream) that cost 10 cents (price of a local call) every time RCN's crappy PPP internet lines dropped the connection. Then they decided that the local number it dialed was long distance four months in a row. Wanted me to pay $1,000+ for local phone service in month for their faulty equipment and blamed me for their problems. I finally dropped them (another nightmare -- customer service idiots) and moved on.

If you are contemplating RCN, rub your face with a cheese grater instead, it will be a much more pleasant experience.

Re:You're lucky!

[jamienk]

I have RCN in Manhattan, and I've found the cable internet to be great. I get 250kb/s download and over 100kb/s up. They never publicly fret about IP, etc. It just works.

Wait and see....

[gad_zuki!]

>I thought for sure that would be one thing. I thought that they would restrict the speed so you were forced to watch commercials.

Call me cynical, but it would seen suicidal to wake up the sleeping DRM right now. Wait till Tivo et al are out of business and then push the new licensing agreement on them. I mean, why *wouldn't* they do that. The cable industry isn't exactly really into ethics or competition. They have a history of signing exclusive municipal deals, fighting off shared access, and a few months ago comcast told all its cable modem subscribers that unless they order their video service then the cable modem service will cost 10 dollars more.

Heh, just wait to see what they've got in store for him, especially when HBO, TBS, or whoever says, "We wont do business with you unless you stop skipping our commercials." Tivo and Replay would be immune to that, the cable companies aren't.

You really don't want your content provider to also be your hardware provider.

Re:Wait and see....

[attaboy]

I don't think HBO cares a lot about their commercials, as they're mostly commercials for other HBO shows, and not paid advertising...

In truth, I think for HBO (in terms of making viewers happy) PVRs are a GREAT thing. The only downside of the great HBO programming is that because there are no commercials, you can't step away from the show without missing some action. You can't pause The Wire for a bathroom break, can't stop the Sopranos for a quick trip to the microwave...

The current drawbacks of all current PVRs that aren't produced by the cable/satellite companies, are that as far as I can tell, PVRs cannot decode premium ("encrypted"?) digital cable channels. I could be wrong, but if I hooked a Tivo up w/ digital cable, I'd have to route though the cable box first and tune with the cable box, which sucks for any kind of pre-recording of shows when you aren't around to tune them...

Re:Wait and see....

[WebMasterJoe]

Heh, just wait to see what they've got in store for him, especially when HBO, TBS, or whoever says, "We wont do business with you unless you stop skipping our commercials." Tivo and Replay would be immune to that, the cable companies aren't.

I see your point for some stations, but HBO and TBS are both owned by AOL/Time Warner. So is Cinemax, TNT, Cartoon Network, CNN, TMC, Court TV, WB, and NY1. And they own so many media companies, that just about every station has to pay them for something they do.

The fact is, AOLTW is probably going to be a major trendsetter in this arena, simply because they own so many of the companies that could oppose their decisions. I'm staying clear of this whole mess (I use Dish Network's dishplayer, and the TCO is cheaper anyway) because I don't feel like giving this 500lb gorilla any money when there's an easily attainable alternate solution.

Re:Wait and see....

[sllim]

Actually Tivo is a non-issue for this stuff.
It comes with several ways to control your cable box. One of them is an IR controller that you put in front of the cable box. It acts like a remote control. You tell Tivo what kind of cable box you have and you are all set. Tivo changes channels for you.

Tivo B D'bomb for digital cable.

Your building can't stop you from having a dish

[Anonymous Coward]

Under FCC guidelines, a Homeowner's Association or a landlord cannot prevent a homeowner from installing a satellite dish less than one meter in diameter on any property where the owner has both direct or indirect ownership and exclusive control. In some cases, a Homeowner's Association may be able to require the owner to adhere to certain guidelines, such as professional installation and proper screening. Furthermore, there may exist regulations on satellite dishes in historical districts.

In regards to rental property, FCC guidelines permit a leaseholder to install a dish less than one meter in diameter on areas that are under exclusive use of the tenant. Prior consent from the landlord is not required if the leaseholder intends to install the dish on an area where they have exclusive control (i.e. a patio or balcony).

For more information on satellite installation rights and regulations, please see the zoning section of the SBCA Web site at: http://www.sbca.com/government/zoning.htm.

Re:Your building can't stop you from having a dish

[Some Dumbass...]

Under FCC guidelines, a Homeowner's Association or a landlord cannot prevent a homeowner from installing a satellite dish less than one meter in diameter on any property where the owner has both direct or indirect ownership and exclusive control.

Since when did the FCC have the right to regulate property? These aren't FCC rules, they're part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, passed by Congress.

Even then, if this involves a permanent modification to your apartment, you probably should still get your landlord's permission before installing anything. If you make any permenant changes to the apartment, you may end up being responsible for the results (e.g. if you damage a railing by attaching a satellite dish poorly).

Re:Your building can't stop you from having a dish

[ewolfr]

If you're smart you don't ever attach the dish to any part of the building or railing. You install the dish in a 5 gallon bucket with a pole mounted in a pool of Quikrete. I installed mine this way and the parts cost me less than $20 at Lowe's. This way the landlord can't ever say anything about your install because it's in your patio or porch which is completely under your exclusive use.

Re:in case of slashdotting, part three of three

[willtsmith]

I shall boil the whole DTV vs cable argument down very simply.

Cable companies can deliver ANY type of content because they have the most sophisticated high-bandwidth conduit for information ANYWHERE.
I'm sure they never planned it this way, but COAX is the best to consumer data pathway. It not only handles 400 + channels but also delivers bandwidth internet service.

DirectTV is an excellent choice when you live in the middle of nowhere and have no available cable service, OR your cable service sucks. DirectTV cannot offer broadband over satellite. DirectTV only works on maximum, 2 telivision sets.

DirectTV should be highly complimented for lighting a fire under cables ass and forcing them to use that coax for something better then Cartoon Network. The ability to do Digital Cable and Broadband also makes them keep their lines in better shape which results in a clearer picture.

In the future DirecTV will need to develop systems that can service an entire household instead of just one or two TVs. They MUST get into delivering broadband via satellite or via stationary wireless.

DirectTV would also do well to create competing DirecTV networks at point locations. Basically, it would work like a micro-cable network. Satellite DirectTV would be at it's core but it's users would be wired like cable and use special DirectTV receivers for tuning.

Yet another reason why I buy Japanese

[Anonymous Coward]

http://panasonic.jp/dvd/recorder/e200h/spec/01.htm l

160GB HDD, 24x DVD burner, EP mode = 212 hours HDD capacity, Input slots for SD card etc...

One catch, I have to wait until September 1st for this baby. :(

Re:Yet another reason why I buy Japanese

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a link to a write-up on the Panasonic units:

http://www.hometheatermag.com/shownews.cgi?342

The neat thing is that the box will record on
the hard drive initially, BUT will burn a DVD
copy at high speed !!! This sounds like a
dream maching to me ...

Re:Yet another reason why I buy Japanese

[AdrainB]

$1640 is a bit much to pay for a DVR/DVD burner. I'll wait for the price to come down.

Re:Yet another reason why I buy Japanese

[The Lynxpro]

the funny thing is, VCRs cost more than this price when they were introduced (or reintroduced if you are counting the Ampex stuff) in the late 70s... And $2000 in 1978 currency is a lot more than $1640 in 2003 currency... :)

Re:Yet another reason why I buy Japanese

[AdrainB]

Yes, but you can put together a PC with Snapstream and a DVD burner for about $800. Back then you had no alternative.

Re:Yet another reason why I buy Japanese

[The Lynxpro]

True. But that is a PC-centric experience. I could build a Freevo or any of the other open source DVR projects, but I really do not want a PC sitting next to my television in my living room. The TiVo makes too much noise as it is!

This is new?

[T_Biggs]

I was unaware this is still new hardware. We've had one for over a year now. We are on our 3rd, in fact. They kept breaking. Not for a long time though. My area was the lucky testbed for these things, and they were a mess at first. Now though, I can't imagine life without it. How else could I record Starcade and watch Call for Help at the same time? Ok, with a VCR or Tivo, but this is cheaper than a Tivo, and more convenient than a VCR.

Re:This is new?

[martyn s]

Until they put Tivo out of business, when the FCC will require all broadcasts digital, with brodcast flags and then they can just stop you from skipping commercials, recording stuff you're not supposed to, etc. Think I'm paranoid? Watch. It WILL happen.

DishNetwork has had this for years now...

[wernst]

DishNetwork has been selling and/or leasing what it calls PVR's (personal video recorders) for two years now. The one set-top box integrates the whole record-to-hard-drive-from-the-program-guide since day one, including Pay-Per-View and the movie channels.

There is only one quality mode, and it is indistinguishable from "live" digital satelite TV. I've NEVER encountered a program I couldn't time-shift. Oh, and there's a 30-second commercial skip button that works out of the box on the remote.

So why exactly is this development for cable TV "news"?

Re:DishNetwork has had this for years now...

[FireBreathingDog]

DishNetwork has been selling and/or leasing what it calls PVR's (personal video recorders) for two years now. The one set-top box integrates the whole record-to-hard-drive-from-the-program-guide since day one, including Pay-Per-View and the movie channels.

There is only one quality mode, and it is indistinguishable from "live" digital satelite TV. I've NEVER encountered a program I couldn't time-shift. Oh, and there's a 30-second commercial skip button that works out of the box on the remote.

So why exactly is this development for cable TV "news"?

Because digital cable didn't have it before. Perhaps DishNetwork had it, but those of us who get better-than-T1 throughput from our cable modems would rather not switch to satellite and lose our Internet.

Even if we could, some of us live in cities where skyscrapers block our southern exposure, making it impossible to get satellite.

Just 'coz you had something cool before, don't begrudge the rest of us for celebrating now that we have it too! :-)

Viewing habits of those with DVR's

[garfield1979]

I've had a DVR since about may of this year, and I can tell you that it has changed my viewing habits dramatically. I cannot stand watching advertisments anymore, I would rather record something than watch it live. The dual tuner feature is just great. The only setbacks i've had with the box are the slow response times, especially when you're recording something. If you are fast forwarding and a show begins to record, good luck re-gaining control of the box for a good 40 seconds.
The disk capacity is awesome, I have only filled it up completely twice, and thats with a two people household.
If you have the oppertunity to get one I'd say go ahead.
Now imagine if you could send the show you've recorded to you PC or share that show with a friend using the same system.
I think its very well worth the 10 extra dollars a month, and will change your viewing habits once you get used to it. not to mention that it is totally integrated with the digital set top box.

Re:Viewing habits of those with DVR's

[freeze128]

I would like to know if you spend more or less time watching TV now that you have a PVR. I'm curious because I would like a PVR myself, and I wonder if I would just watch more TV, or just record the shows I want, watch them, then find something else to do.

Re:Viewing habits of those with DVR's

[garfield1979]

Actually it depends how much TV you watch usually, I find myself in habit of actually watching the show in its entirety, before the DVR i was always scanning channels when commercials were on, then if I found something else to watch then I'd forget about the previous show, so with this system you'll watch show's that you'd usually not watch (just becasue they come on too late, the commercial breaks are too long...) So I'd say you'll watch more TV that matters, you'll cut a show that lasts an hour into one that is 45 minutes (minus the commercials) so i dont know if that qualifies as spending less time in front of the TV. I'd say it broadens your reach in to the programming, letting you watch what you want when you want it, without having to pause for TV.
When i 1st go the box I was reserved as to if I'd like it that much, but I can say that it's here to stay :-)

Re:Viewing habits of those with DVR's

[pjl5602]

I actually watch more TV now (well, not now since it's all re-runs) but I do it in less time. Besides watching a 1 hour show in 40 minutes, I can watch when I have the time rather then when the show is on. A PVR was bar none the BEST consumer electronics purchase that I've ever made...

Re:Viewing habits of those with DVR's

[Cro Magnon]

I probably watch more TV, but it's much better quality, since I'm not limited to whatever's on at that time.

Re:Yeah, right.

[willtsmith]

I think that MythTV and Freevo will be excellent alternatives once a good hardware set comes out to support it.

Optimally, we would need a Micro-ATX motherboard that included MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 compression. An AGP card that did it would also be good.

The newer All-In-Wonders do hardware encoding but that's still a bit expensive for to construct a new rig. Ideally you would be able to take an Shuttle nVidia box and add a $100 TV/MPEG card and have all the necessary hardware.

Two words: Intellectual Property

[Anonymous Coward]

Tivo and Replay TV (I guess that's still sonic blue) have so many patents on DVR technology that it's not even funny. Tivo, inc. has said for years that their policy is to let the market grow and once in reaches a critical mass they're going to enforce their patents. Watch for it. Time Warner is a big investor in tivo so my guess is that there is some cross over technology here and backdoor agreements.

Re:Two words: Intellectual Property

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out this patent. Sounds to me like a lot of these DVRs are covered by this one.

Here in Los Angeles as well.

[Anonymous Coward]

This service is available to to Southern California as well. Pricing appears the same and the description sounds equal as well. My only complaint is the one or two second pause when changing channels, but with the ability to "pause live TV", it doesn't bother me so much. Without ever actually using a Tivo type unit, I can certainly see why people love their Tivo's so much. As much as I like Tivo, with a large cable company rolling this out to its customers, 3rd party PVRs better have a good business model to stick around for a while longer.

conspiracy!

[Sky Lemon]

I haven't complained about this before on /. but have heard others do it. I had to with this one: This sounds incredibly like a paid advertisement including the first post (by some corporate lackey who does performs this sort of social espionage for a living)!

No seriously folks similar guerilla marketing tactics have been used before by the likes of Sony to promote a new video cell-phone doohickey. They would get some good looking people to start using pre-production units in very populated and/or touristy areas and try to strike up conversations with the people focusing on the phone. I guess they only had to say they worked for Sony if explicitly asked.

Re:conspiracy!

[MikeTRose]

Sorry it sounded that way to you, but I am a real person, not a marketdroid. Just got overexcited. Claimer: I was fired by AOL Time Warner (Life Magazine) over three years ago. I have no interest in Time Warner Cable except as an overcharged customer.

Re:conspiracy!

[Sky Lemon]

Ok sorry for the accusation! :) I didn't really believe that your post was from a market droid but the story about Sony is true so it did make me speculate. Enjoy your TV!

Re:conspiracy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see... article about a cool electronic device that geeks will love.

How exactly is it different than any other slashdot story?

Decent box, horrible software

[jonabbey]

I've had the SA 8000 in Austin since late last year. It is great having the DVR functionality, but there have been a _lot_ of bugs, and a lot of missing features, at least with the Cable backend TW-Austin is using. Some franchises are using a cable back-end made by Pioneer, and their SA-8000 boxes are far more featureful.

Those interested in reading user reports on this device should visit the Yahoo Explorer 8000 Group page. Misery loves company, as they say.

when I said "up for grabs"

[MikeTRose]

I meant "will undoubtedly be used to pay off one of our patient, kind-hearted creditors, not the obnoxious ones who call during dinner and make veiled threats."

Sorry to get yinz hopes up.

Re:Yeah, right.

[eyver]

The system you're talking about could possibly be as "low-end" as a fanless 500MHz or 600MHz VIA EPIA system with hardware MPEG2 decoding alongside a WinTV PVR 250 with hardware MPEG2 encoding.

The only problem is the lack of driver support for the hardware MPEG2 decoding in Linux at the moment, but as soon as it's there, that's the solution you're probably looking for. It's the solution I'm looking at now...

Re:DVR in WI Knight Rider ? WTF!!!

[puto]

As a 33 year old man I grew up with Kit and Michael.

Futurama, Simpsons, and the Family Guy I totally agree.

But Knight Rider I have to take offense.

Ok, it was cool when I was young.

However, looking back here is how I see it.

Michael was an openly macho Guido who bought International Male catalog knock off clothes. He would have had a mullet if his hair would not have been vying for largest fright wig of the 80's award.

Kit, well kit was cool. But he was a latent homosexual who was in love with Michael. Looking for a bit of rought trade. Michael knew this and Kit was his bitch.

And of course with out these factors the fundemental problem is Hasselhoff.

Puto

I've has one for months in Austin... it's okay...

[Halo-]

We've had them in Austin, Texas for some time now. In fact, I'm watching a show I "time-shifted" earlier right now. I have to admit the technology is cool, but not as rapid as you might think.

For one thing, if it is recording something, expect the remote to be sluggish. Like 5-10 second response times when it's feeling especially pissy.

I've also had a few cases of corruption a long time ago when I was recording two shows at once (yep, you can do that, but two's the limit) Both shows came out garbled and pretty much unwatchable.

Sometimes it locks up. You'll need to unplug it for a bit and let it think about what it did wrong. Oh, and when they don't turn it on until it gets the clock signal, they mean it. That, and sometimes I've lost everything which was stored after a power outage. Which is strange, cuz you would think the hard-drive would be okay with that...

I realize I've listed a bunch of negatives here. I do like the device, and it's worth the few bucks a month.

Now if I can just continue to resist the urge to explore those USB, FireWire, and other interesting bits, things will be grand. :)

Re:Yeah, right.

[timeOday]

Is hardware encoding really a must? First, today's general purpose CPUs are so fast and so cheap, it would seem a specialized chip would need very broad appeal to be worth it. Second, these cable boxes that just record the data already compressed, as recieved from the cable co, seem like a FAR more elegant solution. No quality degredation from re-encoding, no fast compression hardware necessary.

Flash Demo screwed up

[freeze128]

I started to watch the flash demo of the Explorer 8000, and at about 2 minutes into it, the sample TV disappears and is just replaced with white background. BAH! Nothing works right.

Re:Yeah, right.

[MikeTRose]

Far less money than what? How much is your time worth on an hourly basis? Is building and supporting your own home-rolled DVR hardware going to take you less than one hour a month?

Either you don't make more than $10 an hour (in which case you can't afford cable television) or the pure pleasure of spending effort, sweat and tears building it yourself in your incredibly copious spare time is more important to you than, say, watching fine AOL Time Warner programming anytime you want for $10 a month.

(Pausing the Daily Show now. sweeeet.)

Personally, I would encourage you to build your own DVR, but don't force me to build one for myself. I'd never get around to it... too busy learning to use all those other HTML tags.

Bring it on!

[Cyno01]

This is just the next step towards the uber-specific TV commercial placement of the future.

And the problem with this is? Maybe they'll stop showing 4 tampon commercials an hour on TNN. Not what i wanna see while watching Bond. Seriously, if there were better commercials i might actually watch them!

no ads on TW Cable guide interface

[MikeTRose]

again, FWIW. I know Adelphia and Optimum interfaces do have ads and look crappy besides. TW interface is pretty clean and no ads.

Re:Yeah, right.

[MikeTRose]

Far less money than what? How much is your time worth on an hourly basis? Is building and supporting your own home-rolled DVR hardware going to take you less than one hour a month?

Either you don't make more than $10 an hour (in which case you can't afford cable television) or the pure pleasure of spending effort, sweat and tears building it yourself in your incredibly copious spare time is more important to you than, say, watching fine AOL Time Warner programming anytime you want for $10 a month.

(Pausing the Daily Show now. sweeeet.)

Personally, I would encourage you to build your own DVR, but don't force me to build one for myself. I'd never get around to it... too busy learning to use all those other HTML tags.

Re:Slashdot - always good for news you already kno

[Insane One]

I was surprised that ohio got it before much of the us. I have had mine for a month now. They had them in the akron, ohio around may...can't remember.
I really like it. It changes channels pretty well no video glitches like the other digital box (it was like watching a avi on a 386sx with 512k video). The quality is pretty good, i forget i am watching a recorded show instead of the live feed.

Knight Rider...

[Cyno01]

He did have a mullet. And even scarier, look whats coming next summer.

Re:I've has one for months in Austin... it's okay.

[garfield1979]

I had my DVR unplugged for 2 days (moved) and all the shows i had recorded were still there, it didnt give me any errors about the shows that were scheduled to record but didnt recoause cause it was unplugged (that would be a feature they should think about). I've also had som problems with scheduling a manual recording, the darn thing would jsut not take, and it would not even tell me why, but thats something I can live with.
I wonder how many people are working on the box right now.

I know that all the special connectors everyone is raving about are disabled, even the AUDIO IN chinch plugs. *dissapointed* but they're saying they're developing for those connectors soon.

The box also has a SIM card slot. I don't know why tho.

these boxes are not without problems

[sbma44]

A friend of mine's got one of these cable company supplied DVRs (from Comcast, DC area). I believe it's from Scientific Atlanta, although I don't know the model number.

His unit, at least, is not very good. It does have two tuners, but the response time of the OS is *very* slow -- if you're recording a show, there can be a 1+ second lag between when you hit a number of the remote and the system recognizes that you've done so! Enter commands too quickly and it'll just stop responding; you've then gotta reboot the damn thing. The compression also leaves a lot to be desired -- lots of artifacts -- although this may be the cable company's fault, not the DVR's.

The convenience of a DVR is still there, but don't kid yourself -- even ignoring the lack of a comparable programming guide, these things are nowhere near as good as Tivo.

Re:Screenshots!

[jkeegan]

Who the hell modded this up?

Fools talk about Big Brother...

[jjh37997]

Sounds great, but what about monitoring your viewing habits?

Who cares! If you're so ashamed at what you are watching that you're scared somebody might find out then maybe you should stop watching it in the first place.

Frankly, I WANT advertisers to know what I watch. If they can get accurate data maybe the shows me and my friends watch have a chance of surviving beyond the first season.

Re:Fools talk about Big Brother...

[Analysis Paralysis]

You should care. Any data collected is going to be sold on to other "personal information" companies. This will not simply be for targeted advertising (and bear in mind that advertising is there to get you to spend money - targeted advertising aims to be more effective at this!) but to find out what you really want so they can charge you more for it. Watch Star Trek/Babylon 5 obsessively? Then they can double your subscription for the Sci-Fi Channel. Keen on American football? Premium price for live Superbowl coverage!

Combine this with other companies' data and you then get some real commercial opportunities - if you eat pizza frequently how do you fancy seeing "targeted" Domino's ads before a feature film, and then being offered a "special bundle" meal offer (available via the "Buy now!" button on the remote) that costs 30% more than what the standard customer pays? Since you mentioned "ashamed", how about receiving a trial issue of PlayDude (with a special, not to be repeated 10% surcharge on their standard subscription!) just because you switched to the wrong channel?

Of course, it is those who will be so forgoing of their privacy who will ultimately be subsidising goods and services to the more cautious - so perhaps I should be encouraging you... Go out and buy those RFID tagged Nikes, order all your books through your Amazon "personalised account", have your data marketed and mined for fun and profit! The new American economy depends on you, citizen!

Re:Fools talk about Big Brother...

[The Lynxpro]

...I wholeheartedly agree with you on that. Some of my friends wouldn't buy a TiVo because they didn't want anybody knowing what they watched. I was just the opposite; I wanted something to counter the Nielsens since so many of my favorite shows over the years have been cancelled because those morons didn't watch the same things... It boggles my mind how something like "Touched by an Angel" can remain on the air for eons (because of Nielsen ratings) but "Angel" on the WB is always in danger of cancellation because of the same folks...

frickin' Safari.

[MikeTRose]

double-posting by accident! argh. beta browsers are irksome.

Re:frickin' Safari.

[Anonymous Coward]

Beta my ass -- Safari hit version 1.0 weeks ago. Safari, to put it bluntly, sucks.

Re:frickin' Safari.

[MikeTRose]

it may say 1.0 on the package, but it's still beta.

Re:frickin' Safari.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're paying $2000 for specialized hardware and $130 for annual OS updates to play with a beta web browser.

You Mac users crack me up.

austin's got it, but gets the TW shaft

[lerhaupt]

I've lived in Cincinnati, Columbus and now Austin, all of which are TW fiefdoms. It seems to me that Austin gets everything first as a test market but then TW shafts them by leaving them with the demo stuff. Cincy/Columbus's version of digital cable is much better/clearer/smarter than Austin's and I'd bet other cities have better quality than those. I wonder if the DVR units are the same, considering Austin got these back in February.

Though, I do hear we're getting a major update in Oct.

As the boat sails away

[javakev]

It seems most have missed why the cable companies are pushing these boxes out. These boxes will render the current rating system useless. Instead of a sampling of a small group of people they will be able to track the masses, then data mine our viewing habits. On the bright side quality show will stay on TV. On the downside they will have a record of everything you have ever watched and while watching when you switched channels. Unlike the RIAA television execs are reworking their current business model.

So why on earth are they so damn slow?

[biscuit67]

I have a DVR box here in Austin and they are the absolute worst in performance and ease of use. They are very unstable, crashing a lot. They forget to record programs, they don't start recording, sometimes, until 1 minute in to a show.

Channel switching is SO PAINFULLY SLOW. Sometimes I can press channel up 5 times, then down 3 times wait about 5 seconds then it will do them all in one go.

Just absolutely, unbelievably terribly slow programming. I would be embarrassed to work on such a project.

I don't know what sort of excuses Scientific Atlanta could bring for such a painfully slow product. I would love to hear why they are so slow. That should be good for a laugh.

The user interface is just frustrating. Having to press 'SELECT' instead of 'PLAY' when you're over a program you want to watch is just unforgivable.

You may be able to tell I'm slightly pissed. I tried to watch the Watergate Scandal thing on PBS last night but it forgot to start recording.

Re:So why on earth are they so damn slow?

[Anonymous Coward]

frustrating however this is because the box starts recording as soon as you change the channel! You should use the guide for channel surfing. Once I figured this out life got a lot better.

Funny explorer 8000 story.

[1lus10n]

We got these things late last year where i am. (Rochester, NY) and i Love mine but i have had several nagging issues with it since i got mine in december.

some of the smaller issues are lag in remote-terminal response, it can be upto 15 seconds at times. and also the long time it takes to save things into the scheduled recordings.

but the funniest thing i have ever had happen was i was recording jay and silent bob strike back, and for about the first forty minutes of the movie the video was fine, but the audio was first classical music, then rap music, then german talk radio. it was really amusing because when the classical music was playing it almost PREFECTLY fit the movie scene for scene ...... hilarious.

i recomend the unit because it is just $9.95/month which is pretty cheap. the record feture has a bug in it that i called TW about but hasnt been fixed yet AFAIK. it happens when you set the box to record all the episodes of one show (say CSI) and the network changes the time slot or day that the show was scheduled to start/play at, the box will record the prior spot. no matter what unless you go through and erase all of the scheduled recordings of that show.it will even change the name of the recording to show the new show title.

the only other knock i have on it is that the "record all showings of this show" feature is basically a "record all showings of this show on this channel only". which is a PITA for me since i tried recording CSI on TNN and CBS but it only catches one. you can add a second recording for the other channel, but its a minor annoyance.

YMMV

Check TiVo out first

[macwhiz]

I haven't used a SA 8000 myself, but I've talked to people who have. I've also played with other "advanced" SA boxes, like the 3100HD. I own a TiVo. Based on all that, I'd recommend anyone considering the SA 8000 take a good look at a TiVo first. The consensus seems to be that the SA 8000 looks good only so long as you don't know what you're missing.

The SA 8000 has these advantages:

• No up-front cost
• Dual tuners
• No need for the IR dongle
• Better recording quality for digital channels
• Doesn't require phone line connection

However, the TiVo has advantages over the SA 8000:

• Season Pass function is far smarter about multiple shows, reruns, etc.
• Suggestions feature will often record things you want to see that you didn't know to record
• Rarely if ever crashes
• Doesn't lose all your shows when the power goes out or the box crashes
• Isn't tied to your current cable system -- operates without the cable line attached, can be taken with you on vacation or to a friend's house
• If you are comfortable with computers, can be easily modified
• Better user interface doesn't get in the way of watching TV
• Can play MP3s from your home computer when connected to your home LAN*
• Can display JPEGs from your home computer when connected to your home LAN*
• Can be programmed remotely from any web browser -- so if you're at work and you realize you forgot to record a show (or you are about to stay late), you're a few clicks away from having no problem*

* Requires Series2 TiVo and Home Media Option (extra cost)

The Season Pass is the key to DVRs. The power of the DVR is the ability to say, "I want you to record every new episode of ER." The DVR then figures out which episodes are new, when they come on, which ones to record, etc. My understanding is that SA's DVR has a fairly rudimentary ability to record shows by name. The Season Pass has an ability to distinguish reruns from new shows, determine when a show is on six times in a week and record it just once, automatically determine which of six showings in a week doesn't conflict with other recordings, and even record shows based on keyword searches of the actors, title, or description. What point is there in owning (or renting) a DVR if it's as cumbersome to use as a VCR?

Some important points about the SA 8000 that aren't immediately obvious from the hype:

• Although it does record digital channels without recompressing, it must compress analog channels itself. Any channel that you could get without the digital converter box is still analog, even with the digital box.
• If your cable connection is out, and the box can't get authorization to operate from the cable company, you may not be able to watch the stuff on the hard drive.

In my opinion, SA has work to do on their line of digital boxes. My 3100HD was plagued with issues. It had trouble with digital sound. It would occasionally reset for no apparent reason. It seemed to degrade analog channels quite a bit -- its comb filter was terrible. From all the reports I've read, the 8000 is even worse, suffering from annoying, crippling bugs that haven't been resolved in a year of deployment. I question whether or not SA is dedicated to making these boxes work properly, or if they're "good enough" to generate extra revenue for cable system operators.

The TiVo works great, it's stable, it's the standard to which others are compared, and I own it. I can modify it. I can use it as I see fit -- it doesn't require "authorization" to work.

Don't get taken in by the "invasion of privacy" FUD. Yes, the TiVo will report back on your viewing habits. The data is anonymized. Personally, I like the idea that my viewing habits may be scrutinized by the networks. Too many good shows that I like are taken off the air for "poor ratings." I firmly hope that someday, TiVo data is taken as seriously as Nielsen est

Re:Check TiVo out first

[imadork]

The parent post is right on the money. I got a TiVo a little over a year ago (Old Series 1 without the new bells and whistles), and it really does change the way I watch TV. But when the modem went south on it a few weeks after purchasing it, and I sent it in for service (luckily still under warranty), I tried out the Time Warner DVR.

It absolutely sucked compared with the TiVo. The interface was garbage, and searching for a new show to record was an excrutiating process. The equivalent of TiVo's "Season Pass"es didn't work right at all. The only things that the TW DVR had that the TiVo didn't were two tuners (which I'd still love to have), and a bigger hard drive (which I upgraded the next time Circuit City had a Hard Drive rebate going...)

Then again, I never really liked the menu interface on any of those Sci-A boxes, and I love the fact that I can mod my TiVo -- in addition to the hard drive upgrade, it has ethernet, and telnet and a web server!

TiVo, while more expensive, is much more useful and definitely has a higher "geek factor". Which, as a /. reader, is all you should be concerned about!

Re:Check TiVo out first

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have digital cable, and a Tivo, would you then need two set-top boxes, one for the cable, and the tivo itself? That would be a bit too much for me, I'd think.

Re:Check TiVo out first

[purplebear]

I have to agree with this post mostly. IMO, the Tivo is a far superior product. I'm not sure why these cable companies don't work out some deal to license the technology.

I started my DVR experience with a DishPVR from Dish Network. I had never even seen a Tivo and thought the DishPVR sucked horribly. I changed over to TW Digital and a Tivo. I and my wife loved every minute of it save one hitch. I hated having the separate units. TW would occassionally reset the digital receiver and Tivo would record nothing somehow thinking it was still getting a signal. So, when TW released the Digital DVR here in Memphis, I put the Tivo to the side thinking this would solve my problem. It did to an extent. You could turn the digital box off yourself and it would still record your shows.

This thing has major issues though. Try recording two or three shows back to back all on the same channel, then jumping in half way through the first show to go ahead and start watching it. When the first show ends, in real time, you are jumped to the second show no matter where you are in watching the first, time shifted. Kinda ruins the time shifting ability there. Starting a show 20 - 30 minutes late is great for skipping commercials but still ending the night mostly on time. It also has issues with corruption. I had scheduled four shows back to back. It got all of the first and third show, said it had all the other two, but in reality only had one minute of each. Where did the rest go? No clue.

To conclude, my experience with the SA 8000 made me switch back to Tivo and completely drop digital cable. I never really watched premium channels anyway, but now I have what I want. TW can't crew up any recordings by resetting the box, and my Tivo has yet to screw anything up.

Re:Check TiVo out first

[ragnarok]

When the first show ends, in real time, you are jumped to the second show no matter where you are in watching the first

Actually you don't even have to be recording the next show. If you're watching a show you're recording and it gets to the end you skip to the live signal. Then you have to go to the recorded list, re-start the program you were watching, and use the excruciatingly slow fast-forward (what it needs is a 5 minute skip button).

That bug has been there since I got my box a year ago, it seems like someone at SA could fix it.

Re:Check TiVo out first

[The Lynxpro]

You forgot one thing. You don't have to buy the Home Media Option for remote scheduling via the web if you are an AOL subscriber. You can program your TiVo through the AOL program scheduling. Its no longer in Beta. The only problem is, you cannot program it if you are logging through the AOL webpage, say from work. You have to be signed in through the actual AOL software, although I'm sure they will change this to accommodate the people accessing AOL through their mobile phones...

Re:Check TiVo out first

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you know how many AOL users are reading slashdot...

irritation with article

[JimBobJoe]

As we've seen by the slashdot comments so far...many people all across the country have been able to get this DVR through Time Warner...and have had it for several months.

Admittedly, the article was written for New Yorkers, but it seems to imply that New York will be the first area to receive the Time Warner DVR, which isn't the case.

I guess my bitch is that I take it as another form of New York centrism...but perhaps I'm being too rough on the article.

Re:irritation with article

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it means that no one in any other market thought that getting a new cable box was worth mentioning.

Come into my chamber, said th spider to the fly...

[NeuroManson]

I have some issues with cable companies incorporating digital recorders with their boxes.

For one, lets take the wayback machine to when VCRs first entered the market. They were touted as, and preferred for, the fact that anyone who liked a specific program could record the show of their choice while watching another, or record a show while away from the TV.

Universal/Jack Valenti (of MPAA fame for those who don't know) were steadfast against this, mainly because it suddenly gave the viewers/consumers a choice in what they watched.

Now it's come full circle. Remember the scandal when it was found that Tivo would record programs nobody wanted to (such as deciding some viewers wanted to record gay television shows because they recorded Sex in the City a certain number of times), or even record programs that were promoted heavily, whether or not the viewers wanted it to be recorded?

Now imagine this. One: The media giants paying the cable companies to set up the boxes to automatically record shows that nobody wants to prop up ratings, or two: If there's a particularly controversial bit of footage, like a cop beating up another black motorist, or the president declaring war on England as a gaffe, or what have you. If they can control the DVR, they can tell the DVR to erase anything they don't want you to see.

Remember the whole thing with Max Headroom where it was against the law to turn off the TV? Imagine a world where it's illegal to choose what you record on your VCR/PVR/DVR.

What about HD?

[Scott Tracy]

I've just turned in my last SA3000 set-top, finally making the switch completely to HD, and now have two SA 3100HD terminals. I believe my cableco (Rogers in Toronto, CA) is testing a SA PVR now.

However, I fear that all the cableco PVRs are standard-def only, which either (a) leaves me out in the cold, or (b) means I'd have to stack set-tops and pay for a 3rd box.

Is anyone using, or know of, a Hi-def PVR coming from Scientic Atlanta? (Or even Motorola, which would put pressure on SA)

Re:What about HD?

[WildBeast]

On the site they say that they'll be coming with a PVR that's got HD support sometime but those SA boxes cost way too much for me. I think I'll wait for something better.

Re:in case of slashdotting, part three of three

[pjl5602]

DirectTV only works on maximum, 2 telivision sets.

Funny, it's working on 3 sets right now in my house and two inputs are going into my DirectTivo. Perhaps you're not aware of multi-switches? :-)

great...now that tehy sold their network

[the_2nd_coming]

now that they sold their network to CRAPhouse networks I get to pay a lot for nothing!!! not to mention the new company can't keep their cable and internet up for more than 5 min.

Doesn't compare to TiVo.

[s.o.terica]

I had a TiVo, then TiVo Series2, and got the Time Warner DVR box as a 30-day free trial to see if it compared to TiVo since it had the advantages of recording two channels at once and costing less.

It's not a TiVo.

First, the interface is simply rotten. While on the TiVo you use a simple five-way navigation system for all menus, (with all menus working consistently), the Time Warner DVR uses a bizarre system of five-way navigation keys, plus an Exit button, plusa yellow triangle "A", blue square "B, and round circle "C" "soft" buttons (unfortunately familiar to those who use the similarly junky Time Warner Digital Cable boxes) to variously (never consistently) "Select" "Cancel" "Record" etc.

The TWC DVR often takes up to 3 seconds (almost never less than one second) to respond to a button press on the remote. Result? You often assume that the DVR didn't register the button press, and you press the button again. This very often leads to the DVR doing something other than what you intended.

On the TWC DVR, you only get approx. 3 days of program guide data. Want to record something more than 3 days away? Better know what channel and time it's on! Defeats the purpose of a DVR, doesn't it?

On the TWC DVR, there's no way to actually search for a program to record. The only navigation through the list of available programs is to select the first letter of the program, then arrow through pages and pages of programs to find the one you want. And what's worse is that each instance of each program is listed separately. Result? Say you want to record Pretty Woman when it comes on (assuming it comes on in the next three days) -- first you have to scroll through dozens of pages of Paid Programming (among others) just to find it. Not easy, useful, or faster than looking the movie up in TV Guide and programming the VCR.

Unlike TiVo, the TWC DVR doesn't keep track of which episodes of a show that it's recorded. Result? You end up with several of the exact same episode of South Park recorded, one for each time it's shown during the week, which effectively reduces the total recording capacity. This problem is compounded by the fact that the TWC DVR really only holds closer to 35 hours of TV.

The TWC DVR is loud -- it hums and the hard disk constantly clatters (so much that I have had to turn up the TV to hear over it). All TiVos are basically silent.

The TWC DVR doesn't have Recommendations -- it won't tell you and/or automatically record shows that it thinks you might like.

The TWC DVR crashes. At least once a week, it will crash in some (usually new and spectacular) manner. It will freeze, start stuttering, the menus will crash, the audio will start recording poorly, and other problems. Sometimes it will restart itself, sometimes you have to pull its power cable and force it to restart. I have yet to have even the slightest software glitch in my TiVo Series2.

The TWC DVR doesn't combine episodes of a show into groups, can't be remotely programmed, doesn't play music and slideshows over a network, doesn't support WishLists, has poor conflict resolution capabilities, doesn't allow adjustment of the start or end times of a show, and won't tell you which episodes of a show won't be recorded when conflicts occur.

Again, the TWC DVR is not a TiVo. Despite the lower cost and the two-channel recording, if you have a TiVo you will never be satisfied with the TWC DVR. If you get a TWC DVR and it is unsatisfactory to you, do notassume that you will be unsatisfied with other DVRs (i.e. TiVo or ReplayTV) because all DVRs are not created equal.

I took my TWC DVR back. They may be able to eventually fix some of its deficiencies, but they will never be able to fix its dreadful interface due to its integration with the bizarrely designed remote. Amazing that they've had four years and they weren't even able to duplicate the quality of TiVo 1.0.

Re:Doesn't compare to TiVo.

[SmurfButcher Bob]

Hey, you left out the best part -

Any time that TW pushes an "upgrade", you lose all of your recordings, and all of your schedules.

It wouldn't be that bad, except that these "brainwipes" seem to happen quite often... enough to wonder if these units aren't based on an MS product...

Oh, and there's an extra funny caveat. You get no instructions with the unit, just a card with an annotated screenshot of the remote.

If you want instructions, you can go to the SciAtl website. After you read their privacy policy which says all personal information is optional, you can sign up and give them your name, address, number of TVs, number of computers... then you can give them the serial number off of the DVR (which is strictly optional, they promise)... then you'll have access to a user's guide once they email you your account info. It's gotten better, though. I recall when I got my DVR a year ago, they also wanted my spouse, age, gender, race, income, number of kids, kid's names, and the barcode number off the unit as well... but it was strictly optional, so it's okay. Funny thing is, the none of their scripts will allow you to register unless you complete all of the required fields, lol.

So wrong, I dont know where to begin..

[iamsure]

On the TWC DVR, you only get approx. 3 days of program guide data. Want to record something more than 3 days away? Better know what channel and time it's on! Defeats the purpose of a DVR, doesn't it?

I have one here in Columbus, Ohio, and mine tracks two weeks ahead. You just have to SCROLL to it.

On the TWC DVR, there's no way to actually search for a program to record. The only navigation through the list of available programs is to select the first letter of the program, then arrow through pages and pages of programs to find the one you want.
Select button, Theme, choose. Or, Select button, Title, choose. Or do it by time. Or both.. Plenty of ways.

Unlike TiVo, the TWC DVR doesn't keep track of which episodes of a show that it's recorded. Result? You end up with several of the exact same episode of South Park recorded, one for each time it's shown during the week, which effectively reduces the total recording capacity. This problem is compounded by the fact that the TWC DVR really only holds closer to 35 hours of TV.
Wha? You have to tell it either: Record only new shows, Record *ALL* shows, or Record THIS show. Granted, it takes "all" literally, but I dont consider it a bad interface choice.. its literal and correctly documented.

The TWC DVR is loud -- it hums and the hard disk constantly clatters (so much that I have had to turn up the TV to hear over it). All TiVos are basically silent.
I have mine directly across from my bed. TV muted, no sound. None. Its quieter than my computer by leaps and bounds. Apparently YMMV.

The TWC DVR crashes. At least once a week, it will crash in some (usually new and spectacular) manner. It will freeze, start stuttering, the menus will crash, the audio will start recording poorly, and other problems. Sometimes it will restart itself, sometimes you have to pull its power cable and force it to restart. I have yet to have even the slightest software glitch in my TiVo Series2.
Your solution is related to your problem. You should *never* de-power the unit. It causes many problems. I've only had two problems, and both were due to pay-per-view, NOT the box itself. But both times they specificially asked if I 'lost power' to the box, and explained the problems it caused (which is in the manual).

can't be remotely programmed, doesn't play music and slideshows over a network,
Thats right - its not a network appliance, and its not a media PC. It is a DVR. It does EXACTLY what it says it is.

Again, the TWC DVR is not a TiVo. Despite the lower cost and the two-channel recording, if you have a TiVo you will never be satisfied with the TWC DVR
Having used both the navigation system for the TiVo, and the TWC box, I gotta say, its a hands down choice for me. The TWC box wins without a thought.

I find the TiVo controls to be cluttered, confusing, and difficult to navigate. The TWC stuff just *WORKS*. Its simple, well designed, and best of all, yes, its cheaper.

Re:So wrong, I dont know where to begin..

[Anonymous Coward]

You MUST be a TWC employee because I disagreed with every rebuttal you had in favor of the SA box.

They're loud, there's NO search feature (you cant enter an actor or a keyword and it generate a list of shows), the recording feature has no memory as to what it's recorded. You say 5 episodes of Farscape, if you have 2 scifi channels (digi cable does) you get the same FREAKING episode recorded twice. The navigation on the SA is crap! The scrolling tv guide menu, oh yeaaaaaah... that's no slow and CRAP!

As for locking up, I left mine running and never unplugged it. But, about twice a week, IN PRIMETIME, the SA box would lock up for about 15 minutes. Just ridiculous

I went back to tivo. best decision I've made all year.

Re:So wrong, I dont know where to begin..

[MImeKillEr]

Not to mention, TWC's standard response when there's any issues with their boxes is 'unplug it for 5 minutes'.

This goes across the board - the craptastic SciAtl boxes as well as any of their cable modems.

Re:So wrong, I dont know where to begin..

[s.o.terica]

My TWC DVR box, 2 replacement boxes (that they provided to attempt to fix problems), and 2 friends' TWC DVR boxes (on different TWC cable systems) had every single problem that I described. Loud, incompatible, crashy (crashing is also well documented by others in this thread, and unplugging the unit is directed by TWC customer service, and is no different to the box than force-rebooting by holding down the power button), and incredibly poor interface. Like I said, you cannot search for a program. Scrolling through programs by "Theme" does nothing to alleviate the limitations I listed. If you think that the TWC DVR box is easier, then you haven't used a TiVo for more than two minutes (I've lived with both, and used the TWC DVR as my only DVR for four weeks until I simply couldn't take it any more). The TiVo is consistent in its entire menuing system (for example, "Select" always represents OK/Yes/Confirm/etc and the left arrow ("Back") always represents No/Cancel/etc.

For example, when I attempt to Delete a show, on TiVo, it pops up a confirmation menu where I scroll from Do Not Delete to Delete Now and press Select.

By contrast, on the TWC DVR, when I try to Erase Recording it pops up a menu overlay and randomly assigns Yellow Triangle A to Erase and Red Circle C to Cancel (completely bypassing both the natural order of the ubiquitous web browser metaphor of using the left button as a "Back" button, and even bypassing the Exit button on the remote. So you first have to decipher from the screen which button does what, then look down at the remote to figure out where the button is since the extra buttons don't fall under your fingers like the nav buttons do. Yeah, much easier than using a five-way nav system. Maybe web browsers, cell phones, Pocket PCs, Palms, etc. should adopt extra A, B, C and Exit buttons since they're clearly a sign of a superior interface. My original statement still stands: If you have a TiVo (not just used one for two minutes), you'll never be satisfied with the TWC DVR.

obviously new to the monkey practicality concept

[boarder]

The EFF could make really good use of a monkey...

It could use it as a bargaining chip: all CEOs really need a prank monkey to keep them amused.

They could train it as a fighting monkey to either threaten litigious CEOs or to make the EFF more money by fighting in monkey battles.

Monkeys are cute, having one at the defense table could really sway a judge or jury.

Monkeys can infiltrate bad corporations and mess up filing systems, break computers, throw feces at secretaries (the lawyers are already used to feces being thrown at them).

Old technology to the mainland

[kyoko21]

I was working in Hawaii back in March-May and I'm actually from Northern Virginia. Apparently, Hawaii has been deploying DVR for a while now and it's basically the same thing that New York is deploying. From skimming through the rest of the thread I also noticed that there are other areas that have the system already deployed. I guess it's just slowly reaching the various cable markets. I have not seen this on the Cox network yet nor have I heard anything regarding this.

Anyone out there on the Cox cable network and have heard of possible DVR services?

HD DVR's coming from DirecTV and Dish

[corebreech]

The one from DirecTV is some kind of joint venture with TiVo and according to the press release will be out later this year.

The one from Dish is called the DishPVR 921 and may be out in August, if the lady who answers the phone at Dish was on the level.

DirecTV has a SD unit w/TiVo and the nice thing about it is that it stores the MPEG straight from the dish to the hard drive, there is no re-encoding. Hopefully, both of the upcoming HD PVR's will follow suit.

Of the two, I'd probably prefer the DirecTV/TiVo, just because I've heard so many great things about TiVo.

But only Dish offers pr0n channels that aren't PPV, so there isn't really any comparison. :)

the problem is this

[Anonymous Coward]

the cable companies undercut Tivo and competitors and drive them out of business. Ultimately, they control the market. Next step is feature cutting -- no more skipping comercials, etc.

Time Warner DVR is crap

[Anonymous Coward]

I had one of these here in Austin for about 6 months, and decided to go back to Tivo.

The boxes are buggy, the programming is awful, the user interface is a joke.

One of my biggest complaints was the inability to search for new shows. There's no ability to rate a show thumbs-up or thumbs-down like with a Tivo also.

We had used a tivo at our family's place, and thought it interesting, but we didnt realize how nice it was until we used the TW box.

Trust me, buy a Tivo. You won't regret it.

I just can't emphasize enough how craptastic the Sci Atlantic boxes are.

That's exactly how directivos work

[gad_zuki!]

In fact I recently replaced the drive on mine and noticed the motherboard is really simple. There's the CPU, there's the MPEG2 chip, there's the card reader, the hard drive, and little else.

In fact you cannot re-encode the stream because the hardware isn't even there.

If you're a directv subscriber you'd know that the quality isn't that hot. Its better and more consistant than typical analog cable, but you'll see lots of artifacting. The bitrate is low especially compared to a DVD.

So lets assume I'm getting 70 hours on my 80 gig drive (the truth may be closer to 60 hours but I'm too lazy too look it up). That's 4,200 minutes of programming. 252,000 seconds. 83886080 kbytes/252,000 seconds = 332 kilobytes per second. Or around 3.4 mbps. Not exactly firewire speeds there. DVDs are typically double that bitrate and they go through a much more sophisticated analog to digital conversion and scene optimization to reduce the artifacts.

Time Warner NYC - HDTV??

[Anonymous Coward]

does anyone know when Time Warner NYC is going to expand on their HDTV programming? i want my ESPN HD and Discovery HD!! THEN i'll worry about getting a DVR.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Analysis Paralysis]

Build it yourself and you can be (resonably) certain of there being no "surprise" features like sending data back to the AOL Mothership, or a DRM "upgrade" deciding that you should no longer be able to play back previous recordings. Given the extent to which some Linux distros have improved in ease of installation, it shouldn't be too much longer before a bootable CD-ROM with a complete Freevo setup becomes available.

what was that you said?

[radish]

I'm about to relocate to NYC from europe, who do I need to sign up with to get the 24/7 pr0n? :) I was planning to get TW I think, but I didn't see anything that interesting on their lineup.

record two; watch a recorded

[slashdotcassius]

I've had the Time Warner DVR for a few months now. On my box, you CANNOT record two and watch a separate third program, from neither live feed nor prerecorded programming. When this is attempted, one of the programs will not record. I did not know this, and for a while blamed myself for not setting the recordings correctly. Time Warner has now upgraded the software such that a warning pops up for the user to: 1) tune to one of the two scheduled recordings, 2) choose one of the scheduled recordings to not be recorded. I use it quite a bit; it has had it's moments of down time. Mine was advertised with 45 hours of recording space. I find I get about 35. In my area, you have to be paying $16.95 for the digital service before you can pay $5.95 for the DVR service. All in all, you get what you pay for with this product.

Sky+ in the UK

[perly-king-69]

Sounds very much like Sky+ in the UK

Re:Sky+ in the UK

[Richard Platt]

>Sounds very much like Sky+ in the UK

An important difference being that with Sky+ you have to buy the box *and* pay a monthly subscription of 10. Of course, it's not taken off, as people rightly think that paying a monthly fee to use a piece of hardware you've bought outright is a ripoff. (The *only* thing you get for your money is the ability to use the recording features.)

Still, there are rumours that Sky are going to be dropping the charge in the Autumn. Perhaps Sky can't get away with anything after all.

Re:Sky+ in the UK

[perly-king-69]

Perhaps Sky can't get away with anything after all.

Amen to that brother

Re:Sky+ in the UK

[Goth Biker Babe]

You haven't bought it outright. It's subsidised like a mobile phone. That's why you have to pay the extra each month. As for not taken off there's about 25,000 users of what is really an early adopter product out of 8 million subscribers.

Re:Sky+ in the UK

[Richard Platt]

That may be so, but the fee is continuous. After 3 years you'll have paid far more than the box is actually worth and you'll *still* have to pay to use it. If you stop paying at any point it's no more useful than a standard Sky digibox. Besides, they charge about 250 for it which is in the same ballpark as non-Sky satellite receivers with such recording facilities built in.

25,000 out of 8 million isn't really that much considering it's been around for quite some time now.

NYC Way Behind the Curve

[UNIBLAB_PowerPC]

Funny that NYC is just getting their set-top box rollout from Bright House (former Time Warner), as the previous poster has one in Lincoln, Nebraska ... and I've had one for three months in Birmingham, Ala-frickin-bama. I don't know about you guys, but that almost makes me feel like I was paying to be a beta tester (even if I've only had it fuck up twice).

Anyone mind help populating this DB?

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Digital Cablebox Compatibility Chart

Also, wouldn't mind having some pics of the 8000 series, if anyone feels like donating.

Thanks in advance....

Wow.

[MImeKillEr]

TWC Austin has had these for months. Where've you been?

Nice DVR, not quite ready for primetime though

[CoasterFamily]

The Explorer 8000 is a decent DVR. But, it has quite a few glitches. The biggest is that you need to reboot it at least once a day. And, get this, rebooting is a major pain. The easiest way is to pull the plug and wait a few seconds. It really bugs me to hear the drive clunk to a stop.

To see what others think of it, check out this Yahoo group. It's chock full of info, complaints, and even compliments.

Personally, I love my Explorer 8000 DVR. I just wish it behaved better. Maybe the next ROM update will fix the need to reboot...

I took mine back

[Matt_Bennett]

I had Time Warner's PVR since a few days after they released it in Austin- and I just took it back. The problems I had:

1) The box is slow- particularly when recording- if you choose to record one channel and watch another- changing channels take a few seconds, though all the keypresses on the remote get queued. Really irritating when surfing around.
2) The box frequently 'forgot' programming, and when I told it to 'record every episode' of a show- it would record some, not others, and it was pretty unpredictable.
3) The 'pause live TV' feature takes a while to actually start up (it doesn't record by default) and for some reason, it stopped working altogether. It would just end up giving me a blank screen.
4) A bunch of the programs I recorded ended up being corrupted.
5) (and final straw) It suddenly stopped with an 'unrecoverable write error'

Considering that I was paying nearly $100/mo for cable service (Digital+HBO+PVR+regular set-top) It just wasn't worth it.

Though they advertize it as $10/mo- not really- my bill dropped by about $18/mo when I swapped the PVR for a normal digital set-top box.

Re:in case of slashdotting, part three of three

[Goth Biker Babe]

DVB-S (Digital Satelite) will work with as many decoders as you have LNBs on your satelite dish. BSkyB broadcasting here in the UK has had an equivalent of the new TW box for a year now. It uses twin tuners to allow you to record and watch independently as well as watching two different channels at the same time. But it doesn't preclude you having more STBs if you want provided your LNB can handle the multiple feeds. The most I've found on a single LNB is four feeds but that's a property of the satelite dish and not the format.

MyTimeWarner NYC Experience

[telstar]

I'm on my 5th cable-box in my living room, and it's still not working properly. I started out with a digital cable box. (#1) Worked fine. Upgraded to a new HDTV box. (#2) It broke in a day. Called for a replacement ... they accidentally brought another digital cable box (#3), so I was without my HDTV box for another week. A week later, they brought that one (#4). Recently, that box started flaking out. Dropped signals, using the guide would reboot the box. Video on demand was inopperable. They sent out a tech who gave me a new HDTV box (#5) but didn't have a clue as to how to fix the video on demand. He said "maybe it'll fix itself in a couple hours" ... like when he's gone I presume. Last night I was on the phone with TimeWarner and was forwarded 6 times between departments ... each time being told that they were forwarding me onto the department that handles these issues. I'm at the point where I'm ready to cancel cable from TimeWarner. They can't seem to fix the problems that they have in their own system or in their customer support. I'd rather put my money into DirecTV or something else. I've got a standalone TiVo which I love, and don't plan on shelling out an extra $5 for TimeWarner's DTV service. It may be cool ... it may be great, but out of principle, I refuse to give that company an extra dollar.

Time Warner already offers this elsewhere.

[Anonymous Coward]

Time Warner has already offered this in the Minneapolis area for quite some time now.

Re:in case of slashdotting, part three of three

[macwhiz]

DVB-S (Digital Satelite) will work with as many decoders as you have LNBs on your satelite dish.

That's how it was in the old days, but now we have multiswitches.

The reason one needs two LNBs to attach two receivers is that there are two "polarizations" of the satellite signal. The receiver sends a message to the LNB to change the polarization. Thus, receiver A can use LNB A to watch a channel with right-hand polarization, and receiver B uses LNB B to watch a channel with left-hand polarization.

What if you want to add a third box? There's not a third kind of polarization. You just need a way for the box to share the LNBs. That's what the multiswtich does.

Essentially, the multiswitch looks like a virtual LNB to the receiver. It keeps one of the real LNBs on right-hand polarization, the other on left-hand, and switches its outputs between them as needed to satisfy requests from the receivers.

Things get more interesting when you have an oval dish with a third LNB for satellites in a different orbital slot, of course.

There's a good basic explanation at the HomeTech site.

The DVR won't do HDTV

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate to tell you this but TW's DVR doesn't do HDTV.

NYC isn't the only one

[Anonymous Coward]

TWC in Texas (namely San Antonio) has been offering this for several months now so I can hardly call this *news*.

Re:in case of slashdotting, part three of three

[Goth Biker Babe]

That sounds useful. Thanks I'll have a look.

DVR + DVD-R

[powerlord]

I was wandering through Best Buy last week (new store opened in NYC so I was curious).

Panasonic (I think), had a PVR with a built in DVD-R drive. The concept was that you could watch the show, and then if you wanted to keep it, burn it out. Neat idea, didn't see any other company steal it yet.

Have you ever seen NYC apartment buildings?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in Brooklyn and if I could not put my dish on my roof I would have been SOL. I did not even ask my landlord because the roof can only be accessed from my apt but he knows it's there now and it does not seem to be a problem. Anyhow, I stress that without it being on the roof I could not get the LOS to the satellite.

My experiences with TW's new DVR

[kagejishin]

I had one of these DVR's for a few months before I moved and overall it was a disappointment. The unit would crash (hard) every week or so requiring a full reboot. When I called TW and asked what the deal was, the rep admitted that she had one too and that they were still "pretty buggy". Also, after owning the unit for only a few months during which I rarely used it, other than the automatic buffering, it suffered a hard drive failure. One nice thing I can say about this unit though is that it has the ability to record one show while watching another, which is a feature Tivos and ReplayTVs don't yet have.

DirecTiVo is now licensed by DirecTV

[Anonymous Coward]

IMO, the Tivo is a far superior product. I'm not sure why these cable companies don't work out some deal to license the technology.

The DirecTV TiVo (DirecTivo) is maintained and licensed via DirecTV now. The took it over about a year ago and while there are some annoying branding add-on's via software updates it's the same ol' TiVo.

One nice thing about the DirecTivo is that since all programs coming downstream on the dish are already compressed there is no encodinging ...only decoding. Hence watching a recorded picture is as crisp as would be seen when watching a regular non-recorded picture that comes down the dish.

Also has dual-tuners (remember...no encoding)...watch 3rd recorded while recording two others, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Re:DirecTiVo is now licensed by DirecTV

[The Lynxpro]

Yes, but you are missing out on the Home Media Option* that all the other TiVo Series2 units can add on for the nominal fee of $100... :) I cannot understand why DirecTV won't offer this when it would be more money in their coffers...

Blah.....no HD

[tackaberry]

I've got TWCNYC as well as TiVO (w/ Home Media Option).

I've got TiVo connected straight from the outlet, rather than going the box, and dealing with the IR delay when changing channels. Most of the programming we record is network programming on season pass anyway.

The box I have is the SA-3100HD Hi-Def.

The SA-8000HD is supposed to be available Oct/Nov, but who knows how long it will be before TW will roll that out. Even then it won't offer me all the features of TiVo.

What they really need to do is add ESPN-HD!

The Explorer 8000 is a piece of junk

[mpeskin]

I had this box in Austin for 4 months or so, and it was such a piece of junk it singlehandedly convinced me to switch to satellite (DirecTiVo - a HUGE improvement).

Problems I encountered (in rough order of annoyance):

• Loud chattering hard drive was constantly annoying - especially when NOT watching TV!
• Unbelieveably obtuse interface modeled on existing crappy Scientific Atlanta program guide
• Poor picture quality for analog channels
• SLOW!
• Nearly useless, duplicative, "record all episodes" feature (TiVo season pass is orders of magnitude superior)
• Bugs bugs bugs bugs bugs! The fact that SA was too proud to put a reset button on the front panel is unforgivable.

• Frankly, I expect technology to work (and as a software developer myself, I have little patience for products released with OBVIOUS software/firmware bugs). My life with this box was a teeth-grinding experience, and now that I have switched to satellite I will never look back.

  I don't really blame Time Warner, per=se, for these problems, but rather their insistence on using Scientific Atlanta equipment. SA's attempts at manufacturing high-tech equipment have been laughable - they should have stopped with good-old analog cable boxes, which they actually knew how to make.

  Remember, the equipment you get from the cable company was designed and manufactured to please the cable company (i.e. it's cheap), not you!

I've had one in syracuse, ny for 10 months...

[northcide]

it is pretty good. it is however a bit buggy. you will find that it sometimes can get out of sync. it can also rarely totally screw up the recording process by making everything totally jumpy and wacky. It will also sometimes make changing channels and doing misc guide stuff really laggy. Thats because it starts a new record buffer each time you change to a new channel and it sometimes simply cannot keep up.

Yet another current user

[dekker]

I've had one in Austin since November. I don't have much experience with TiVo, but from all indications, the Time Warner DVR is not as user friendly. It doesn't do as well with the season pass feature and it's kind of a pain to browse more than a day or two in advance to record something. I've had a few problems with shows not recording or only recording part. I've never lost everything and we've had some power outages. I've only had to shut the thing off and allow it to reset once.

I've been perfectly happy with the picture quality. In most cases, I don't notice much of a difference between the recorded and live pictures. I hardly ever record in the analog channels though. It's almost always the digital channels.

I think this service will ultimately act as a gateway to TiVo. Even with it's limitations and inferior UI, I love this thing. It's well worth the extra $10/month. Many of the things that TiVo lovers have been rhapsodizing about are competently handled with the TW DVR. Being able to record whenever you want or pause and come back is invaluable (especially being a parent of two small children). The feature I'm most in love with is being able to fast forward through commericals. There's three fast forward speeds. The fastest gets you through commercials in a few seconds. I find myself getting annoyed that I can't blaze through commercials when I'm watching live TV. As a consequence, I'm now recording most everything I want to watch instead of watching it live. I'm considering shelling out the dough to move to TiVo for the enhanced user experience, but I'm just not sure it's worth the extra money to me. There's also the alternative of building my own which I may still do. I'd really like to be able to increase the hard drive space and offload some programs to another hard drive or burn a DVD for archiving and it seems the only way to achieve these is through some of the open source options.

from the cowboy neal catches on dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Submitted months ago. Way to catch on dork..and the box DOES cost you monthly, but since it's the same as a digital cable box subscrip, the dumbass consumer thinks it's only the one charge.

Hot wifey - MOD UP!!!

[whatch durrin]

Seriously, wifey looks pretty good. Congrats on the (recent?) marriage.

On another note, where's the webcam site? ;)

Re:Hot wifey - MOD UP!!!

[papasui]

It was June 2002 actually. The webcam is currently down :)

**Yawn**

[orblee]

We've had this in the UK for a year or more. Our (pretty much only) satellite distributor, Sky, offer Sky+ for 10 more a month and a higher installation cost (to cover the cost of a better box) and you get all this Tivo capability. Catch up! ;-)

it isn't broadcast quality if its 50 hrs on 80gigs

[The Lynxpro]

I have a TiVo 80 hour unit and you can only get about 23 hours tops of broadcast quality (480p) video... So unless the Time Warner DVR box has leapfrogged the DVR market and is using MPEG4 instead of MPEG2, it isn't possible without dropping the resolution down to VHS quality resolution (which is what the 80 hour TiVo figure is based upon)...

cincinnati

[foo(foo(foo(bar)))]

Cincinnati was one of the first test markets, and I have had mine for well over 2 months. Well, I'm on my second one.

See they get REALLY REALLY hot, because the hard disk runs all the time (even when the box is powered off)
Make sure you have yours in a well ventilated area and don't stack other equipment on top of it.

Thoughts on TimeWarnerAustin/SAE8K

[nfsilkey]

Time Warner Austin has been offering these for an additional $10/mo (topped onto the cost of the typical Digital Cable package) for almost a year now.

I am pretty unhappy with the unit. The UI is kludgy when it comes to managing scheduling recordings, managing erasure of recorded programs, and choosing to record.

Also, the unit will at times double cap programs, fail capture midway through programs when space is free, reboot itself during capture, and, if left unattended for a few days, power itself down.

Maybe I have the crappiest, earliest SA8K on the market. Or maybe these are just poorly made devices. From what I hear Tivo's Season Pass is a killer season capture feature which doesnt suffer from the same ailments as attempts to capture an entire season's lineup with the SA8K piece.

But at a mere $10/mo atop of a digital cable package, where I _dont have to buy the unit_ (!), its still sexy. Nothing beats PVR'ing Queer Eye For A Straight Guy and inviting ladies over to peep the technology. :)

Mine has problems

[mabeesman]

I have one of these in Memphis. The service is great but the boxes are a little flakey. The hard drives are very loud and you have to reboot the box every day or so or it starts locking up on you.

I'm online with TWC right now

[mikegrahamjr]

All you have to do is call em up and say you read somethingonline and $7 a month later they will make an appointment. Actually they are saying +$6 for the converter!! so now its $13 a month. OK Then when he hit submit it took the box charge off. (I have the D'Ultimate package). This guy had never done this before so it seems like if you keep pressing them to remove fees they may do it. GOOD LUCK

Two Tuners on the Scientific Atlanta box

[crimefighter]

Cool, the SA box has two tuners. We're getting closer to my need for infinite tuners here. There are many times when more than two shows are playing at the same time that people want to record (think of the 6PM to 8PM time frame when FX is showing Buffy, your local stations are showing Simpsons or Seinfeld reruns, etc., etc.) Come on Scientific Atlanta engineers. Please give me the ability to record an infinite amount of shows at once. I mean, those 1s and 0s are getting sent to the box anyway, let me store them on the hard drive.

MythTV rules!

[ThrobbingGristle]

Ok, not a very articulate intro but the point stands.

Great things about MythTV:

• number of shows recorded is limited only by the number of tuner cards and how fast your hardware is
  
• can be used with almost ANY video source, and can handle more than one source, like cable+direcTV+antenna
  
• frontend/backend architecture allows you to set up frontends everywhere you have a TV
  
• no monthly fees beyond your internet and cable fees
  
• can play back almost any video format, including DVD's, divx, etc.
  
• can act as mp3 jukebox
  
• will show you the weather on demand
  
• frontend to MAME/MESS/etc.
  
• auto commercial skip (YMMV, it works very well on stations that leave a nice blank frame at the boundaries between the start and end of commercial breaks)
  

I'm not saying MythTV is perfect or doesn't have drawbacks but in terms of features it makes the other options look decidedly toylike IMHO.

Some things it doesn't do:

• collect information about your viewing habbits and recommend shows (I guess people want this, my MythTV machine is full of shows I wanted to watch with little room for anything else)
  
• I'm sure there are others but I can't think of any.
  

Anyway, not to start a flame war, I'm just saying I like MythTV a lot... and to me it seems superior to TiVo.

http://www.mythtv.org

Comcast also has DVR

[Biff78]

About a month ago Comcast started experimenting with DVR in Arlington, VA (Outside DC.) I believe that this is the only region in the country that currently has Comcast DVR. If the choice is popular here it might expand. The equipment appears to be the same as mentioned in the article an 80GB HD with 50 hours of capacity as is. The equipment was free and the service costs $9.95 a month. The service very good but doesn't have all of TiVo's features. For example, no predictive recording.My only complaint so far is that it sometimes causes a delay in channel response when channel surfing. The channel won't change for 2-3 seconds and it will then catch up by flipping through multiple channels at once.

Luxury.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, we used to *dream* of one-way cable. Just a year or two ago, we had acoustically coupled 1200 baud modems supplied by a Russian mafia front paid by direct withdrawl of one-third of your weekly paycheck. You couldn't authenticate without getting your password signed by Gator advertising spyware, and Google was blocked upstream. To be eligible for customer service, you had to work two days down mill, and then submit all questions in writing, in Cyrillic. If you didn't buy $100 worth of products through their Amazon referral program every month, a guy named Vladi would visit your apartment and put his boot in your teeth.

And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

Time Warner DVR

[digicrom]

New York city is just getting them? I'm in Austin, TX and have had my DVR for two months. My first box upon being plugged in gave me a "Fatal read/write error" when acessing the DVr functions and had to be swapped out, my second box worked for three days until it also gave me a fatal error, the third box (the third try is always the charm) has worked flawlessly since I installed it. It's nice being able to tape SG1 to view later, and have it auto delete in two weeks.

Re:I've has one for months in Austin... it's okay.

[Morklebb]

I had one in austin and in less than a month the thing had blown up. The drive trashed itself and I had to exchange it and the next unit did the exact same thing. It also has one major drawback.. it doesn't record a "show" it records a "time" so if you get a season pass to something it just knows what time to record and if the time changes it doesn't know it. Unless they have fixed alot of this in new units.. it's more frustrating than usefull and it was almost 20 bucks a month with the device fee and subscription part. I took it back and went back to my trusty TiVo!

suggestion - move out of TAX heaven

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys get what you vote for. Vote for liberals...get higher taxes, union dues jacking up all prices you pay, government handouts....

Suggestion - move to a lower tax area.

This is slashdot: build your own, darnit!

[tylerh]

While there are several projects out there, I have heard rave reviews for MythTV from folks who do digital video and linux for a living.

Mythtv records multiple channels, it archives, it does playback, it runs on compartively modest hardware, it's C++ on linux under GPL: no stinking DRM for these folks!

So, what are you waiting for? build your own TODAY!

p.s. don't be fooled by the lack of activity on sourceforge; the project really lives on mythtv.org, where there is plenty of activity.

DirecTivo

[-=Zak=-]

80 GB drive, which equals an estimated 50 hours of digital cable programming (no quality controls a la TiVo or ReplayTV, everything is as-broadcast).

Offtopic, but... The DirecTV Tivos (also mentioned later in your comment) record the digital signal exactly as received from the satellite dish as well. I don't think I'd ever buy a standalone Tivo for this reason (well, that AND I hope to never be a cable subscriber again - DirecTV is MUCH better).

Read slashdot in the morning, pick it up same day

[dialt0ne]

Yup, I got my Time Warner DVR today. AND I'm already recording some shows for my wife. I just filled out the form on www.twcnyc.com, they called me and I was able to pick it up - with no installation fee - the same day.

I have to agree with some of the other posts that the changing of channels is a little slow, but the cost comparison makes it worth it. PLUS, if I don't like it I can just swap boxes again (Time Warner has offices close to me so it's not an issue) and not have to worry about the investment cost.

The fact that the monthly recurring cost was less than ReplayTV and TiVo was the closer for me. I already have the cable modem package, so it's only $6.95/mo.

hicks

[Anonymous Coward]

yall are fucking hicks, get back to using red neck linux

Re:obviously new to the monkey practicality concep

[HedRat]

I wonder how much body hair is required before it is socially acceptable to throw ones own feces?